2012年雅思考试一场接一场紧密进行中。为了帮助大家更好的复习，楷维留学指南为大家收集了2012年8月11日雅思考试的阅读机经。希望大家能够够好好利用，都能获得好成绩。

　　2012年8月11日雅思阅读机经【Reading Passage 2】

　　Title:汽车的发展史

　　Question types:

　　Matching, 不同车型的信息

　　简答题(6-7个)

　　文章内容回顾

　　讲汽车的发展历史，介绍了不同的车型。

　　英文原文阅读

　　HISTORY OF CARS

　　The History of the Car has been a long and challenging one. In1678 asmall steam car was shown off that had been made for the Chinese emperor. It was the founding of the early history of the car. By 1769, Nicholas Cugnot was demonstrating an Automobile in France. By 1801, Richard Trevithick was demonstrating a steam-carriage in Britain. The Car continued its development in Britain until a law governing the use of cars basically stopped development for the rest of that century in Britain.

　　In 1789, Oliver Evans was granted the first automobile patent in the United States.

　　The first automobiles that had gasoline powered internal combustion engines were developed in Germany by several different inventors around the same time about 1885. By 1895, the disc brake was patented by Frederick William Lanchester of Britain. In 1889, Panhard et Levassor in France became the first company to form to build just automobiles. Steam, electricity, and gasoline-powered autos competed for the market share. The car was becoming big business in history.

　　From 1908 to 1927, the Ford Model T became the most widely produced car of its time. The vintage era of Car History lasted from 1919 to 1929 and was dominated by front engine cars. The pre-war era of car history lasted from 1930 to 1948. This ear was perhaps dominated by the Volkswagen Beetle.

　　The Post-War era of Car History was the greatest period of Car Development.

　　Although Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is often credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769, this claim is disputed by some, who doubt Cugnot's three-wheeler ever ran, while others claim Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in China, built the first steam powered car around 1672. In either case Fran is Isaac de Rivaz, a Swiss inventor, designed the first internal combustion engine which was fuelled by a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to run on such an engine. The design was not very successful, as was the case with Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir who each produced vehicles powered by clumsy internal combustion engines. In November 1881 French inventor Gustave Trouv demonstrated a working three-wheeled automobile. This was at the International Exhibition of Electricity in Paris. An automobile powered by an Otto gasoline engine was built in Mannheim, Germany by Karl Benz in 1885 and granted a patent in January of the following year under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie. which was founded in 1883. Although several other German engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Siegfried Marcus) were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz is generally acknowledged as the inventor of the modern automobile. In 1879 Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle and in 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal combustion flat engine. Approximately 25 Benz vehicles were built and sold before 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced. They were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz automobile to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early automobiles, more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany. Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (Daimler Motor Company, DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890 and under the brand name, Daimler, sold their first automobile in 1892. By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after falling out with their backers. Benz and Daimler seem to have been unaware of each other's early work and worked independently. Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed a model named Daimler-Mercedes, special-ordered by Emil Jellinek. Two years later, a new model DMG automobile was produced and named Mercedes after the engine. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own. Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers. Karl Benz proposed co-operation between DMG and Benz & Cie. when economic conditions began to deteriorate in Germany following the First World War, but the directors of DMG refused to consider it initially. Negotiations between the two companies resumed several years later and in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, sales, and advertising marketing their automobile models jointly although keeping their respective brands. On June 28, 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz company, baptizing all of its automobiles Mercedes Benz honoring the most important model of the DMG automobiles, the Maybach design later referred to as the 1902 Mercedes-35hp, along with the Benz name. Karl Benz remained a member of the board of directors of Daimler-Benz until his death in 1929. In 1890, Emile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation of the motor industry in France. The first American car with a gasoline internal combustion engine supposedly was designed in 1877 by George Selden of Rochester, New York, who applied for a patent on an automobile in 1879. In Britain there had been several attempts to build steam cars with varying degrees of success with Thomas Rickett even attempting a production run in 1860. Santler from Malvern is recognized by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first petrol-powered car in the country in 1894 followed by Frederick William Lanchester in 1895 but these were both one-offs. The first production vehicles came from the Daimler Motor Company, founded by Harry J. Lawson in 1896, and making their first cars in 1897. In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel got a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine". In 1897 he built the first Diesel Engine. In 1895, Selden was granted a United States patent (U.S. Patent 549,160) for a two-stroke automobile engine, which hindered more than encouraged development of autos in the United States. Steam, electric, and gasoline powered autos competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Although various pistonless rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the conventional piston and crankshaft design, only Mazda's version of the Wankel engine has had more than very limited success.

　　Production of the Car:

　　The large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable automobiles was debuted by Ransom Olds at his Oldsmobile factory in 1902. This concept was then greatly expanded by Henry Ford, beginning in 1914. As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in fifteen minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing production by seven to one (requiring 12.5 man-hours before, 1 hour 33 minutes after), while using less manpower. It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Japan black would dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colors available before 1914, until fast-drying Duco lacquer was developed in 1926. In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay. Ford's complex safety procedures, especially assigning each worker to a specific location instead of allowing them to roam about dramatically reduced the rate of injury. The combination of high wages and high efficiency is called "Fordism," and was copied by most major industries. The efficiency gains from the assembly line also coincided with the take off of the United States. The assembly line forced workers to work at a certain pace with very repetitive motions which led to more output per worker while other countries were using less productive methods. In the automotive industry, its success was dominating, and quickly spread worldwide. Ford France and Ford Britain in 1911, Ford Denmark 1923, Ford Germany 1925; in 1921, Citroen was the first native European manufacturer to adopt it. Soon, companies had to have assembly lines, or risk going broke; by 1930, 250 companies which did not had disappeared. Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910-1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes. Since the 1920s, nearly all cars have been mass-produced to meet market needs, so marketing plans have often heavily influenced automobile design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one company, so buyers could "move up" as their fortunes improved. Reflecting the rapid pace of change, makes shared parts with one another so larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1930s, LaSalles, sold by Cadillac, used cheaper mechanical parts made by Oldsmobile; in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; by the 1990s, corporate drivetrains and shared platforms (with interchangeable brakes, suspension, and other parts) were common. Even so, only major makers could afford high costs, and even companies with decades of production, such as Apperson, Cole, Dorris, Haynes, or Premier, could not manage: of some two hundred carmakers in existence in 1920, only 43 survived in 1930, and with the Great Depression, by 1940, only 17 of those were left. In Europe, much the same would happen. Morris set up its production line at Cowley in 1924, and soon outsold Ford, while beginning in 1923 to follow Ford's practise of vertical integration, buying Hotchkiss (engines), Wrigley (gearboxes), and Osberton (radiators), for instance, as well as competitors, such as Wolseley: in 1925, Morris had 41% of total British car production. Most British small-car assemblers, from Autocrat to Meteorite to Seabrook, to name only three, had gone under. Citroen did the same in France, coming to cars in 1919; between them and the cheap cars in reply, Renault's 10CV and Peugeot's 5CV, they produced 550000 cars in 1925, and Mors, Hurtu, and others could not compete. Germany's first mass-manufactured car, the Opel 4PS Laubfrosch (Tree Frog), came off the line at Russelsheim in 1924, soon making Opel the top car builder in Germany, with 37.5% of the market.

　　Diesel:

　　Diesel engined cars have long been popular in Europe with the first models being introduced in the 1930s by Mercedes Benz and Citroen. The main benefit of Diesels is a 50% fuel burn efficiency compared with 27% in the best gasoline engines. A down side of the diesel is the presence in the exhaust gases of fine soot particulates and manufacturers are now starting to fit filters to remove these. Many diesel powered cars can also run with little or no modifications on 100% biodiesel.

　　Gasoline:

　　Gasoline engines have the advantage over diesel in being lighter and able to work at higher rotational speeds and they are the usual choice for fitting in high performance sports cars. Continuous development of gasoline engines for over a hundred years has produced improvements in efficiency and reduced pollution. The carburetor was used on nearly all road car engines until the 1980s but it was long realised better control of the fuel/air mixture could be achieved with fuel injection. Indirect fuel injection was first used in aircraft engines from 1909, in racing car engines from the 1930s, and road cars from the late 1950s. Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) is now starting to appear in production vehicles such as the 2007 BMW MINI. Exhaust gases are also cleaned up by fitting a catalytic converter into the exhaust system. Clean air legislation in many of the car industries most important markets has made both catalysts and fuel injection virtually universal fittings. Most modern gasoline engines are also capable of running with up to 15% ethanol mixed into the gasoline - older vehicles may have seals and hoses that can be harmed by ethanol. With a small amount of redesign, gasoline-powered vehicles can run on ethanol concentrations as high as 85%. 100% ethanol is used in some parts of the world (such as Brazil), but vehicles must be started on pure gasoline and switched over to ethanol once the engine is running. Most gasoline engined cars can also run on LPG with the addition of an LPG tank for fuel storage and carburetion modifications to add an LPG mixer. LPG produces fewer toxic emissions and is a popular fuel for fork lift trucks that have to operate inside buildings.

　　Ethanol:

　　Ethanol and other alcohol fuels have widespread use an automotive fuel. Most alcohols have less energy per liter than gasoline and are usually blended with gasoline. Alcohols are used for a variety of reasons - to increase octane, to improve emissions and as an alternative to petroleum based fuel, since they can be made from agricultural crops. Brazil's ethanol program provides about 20% of the nations automotive fuel needs, including several million cars that operate on pure ethanol.

　　Electric Car：

　　The first electric cars were built around 1832 well before internal combustion powered cars appeared. For a period of time electrics were considered superior due to the silent nature of electric motors compared to the very loud noise of the gasoline engine. This advantage was removed with Hiram Percy Maxim's invention of the muffler in 1897. Thereafter internal combustion powered cars had two critical advantages: 1) long range and 2) high specific energy (far lower weight of petrol fuel versus weight of batteries). The building of battery electric vehicles that could rival internal combustion models had to wait for the introduction of modern semiconductor controls and improved batteries. Because they can deliver a high torque at low revolutions electric cars do not require such a complex drive train and transmission as internal combustion powered cars. Some post-2000 electric car designs such as the Venturi Fish are able to accelerate from 0-60 mph(96 km/h) in 4.0 seconds with a top speed around130 mph(210 km/h). Others have a range of 250 miles (400 km) on the EPA highway cycle requiring 3-1/2 hours to completely charge.

　　Steam car：

　　Steam power, usually using an oil or gas heated boiler, was also in use until the 1930s but had the major disadvantage of being unable to power the car until boiler pressure was available. It has the advantage of being able to produce very low emissions as the combustion process can be carefully controlled. Its disadvantages include poor heat efficiency and extensive requirements for electric auxiliaries.

　　题型难度分析

　　难度一般，内容好理解，题型也不是很难，第一种题型是一方是特殊定位词的配对，在文中相对好定位，第二种题型是简答题，不是特别难，但数量较多，有6-7个。

　　题型技巧分析

　　配对类题型是雅思阅读的一个特色题型之一。其难度相对较大，对考生能力要求相对较高。在目前的雅思考试当中，配对题已经占了非常大的比重，考生在复习的时候必须非常重视。配对类题型有很多种，常见的种类有：1. 人名-观点配对;2. 地名-描述配对;3. 句子-句子配对;4. 分类题(Classification);5. 段落-标题配对;6. 段落-细节配对。其中前四种做题方法比较类似，而后两种相对较复杂。

　　前四种配对题的出题特点：

　　I. 所考内容全部为细节，和后两种题型考察主旨不一样，前四种题型主要考察的是考生对于文章细节的把握和理解。因此，这些题型的解题方法主要是先用Scan的方法定位出关键的段落。

　　II. 出题不一定遵循顺序原则，在对剑桥雅思真题集进行研究后发现，上述四种配对题型中，除了句子配对题肯定按照顺序原则出题之外，其它的题型有些是讲顺序原则的，有些则不讲。大体上说来，如果一道题目的定位词很明确，很容易在原文中找到信息，那么该题就讲顺序原则;反之亦然。

　　III. 个别题目会有NB出现。在部分题目的指令中，会有这么一行字：NB You may use any letter more than once. 这就意味着在选项中，有至少一个选项可以重复选。但是根据真题的出题思路和考生的实考回忆，一般认为如果出现NB, 很有可能是有且仅有一个选项重复使用一次，个别情况会出现两个选项使用两次;而从来没有三个选项使用两次或两个选项使用三次。

　　对于一方是特殊定位词的配对题，在做题时，首先应先在文章中将特殊定位词—人名，地名，时间在文中划出，做出标记。其次将配对另一方通读，划出关键的词汇，一般以名词为主。然后去文中对已做出标记的部分进行精读，选出答案。

　　剑桥雅思推荐原文练习

　   剑3 Test4 Passage 1