英语阅读(2)平时作业(一).docVIP

英语阅读（2）平时作业（一） 班级：___________ 学号：___________ 姓名：____________ 分数：___________ Part I Read the following two passages and then write brief answers to questions 1–10. 20% Passage 1 In the late 1960s, motorcyclists in California, USA, used to go out in the countryside and ride their machines up and down mountain tracks just for fun. They made a lot of noise and did a lot of damage to the countryside. Soon, the practice was banned but the same people simply switched to old bicycles and started to use those for their sport. At first, they took the bicycles up the mountains in trucks, but then one keen cyclist, Gary Fisher, put extra gears on his bike and began using it to ride uphill as well as down. By the end of the 1970s, bicycle manufacturers were beginning to develop special bikes for offroad riding. And so the mountain bike was born. Now, mountain bikes have wide, heavy tyres to give a good grip on rough surfaces, and straight handlebars to make the control of the steering easier. They are built on smaller, stronger frames than other bikes, because they are often ridden over bumpy ground which would soon damage lighter bikes. 1. Where would motorcyclists go to ride their motorcycles in the 60’s? 2. Why did those people go motorcycling? 3. Why was the practice banned later? 4. What could Fisher do after he had put extra gears on his bike? 5. Why does the frame of mountain bikes have to be very strong? Passage 2 She was launched on 31 May 1911 and sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, via Chergourg and Queenstown, on 10 April 1912. With a gross tonnage of 46, 328 tons, she was the largest ship afloat: 882 feet long, 92 feet wide, 8 decks rising to the height of an 11-storey building. Four days and seventeen hours after the voyage began, at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday 14 April, she hit an iceberg and was badly damaged. Two hours and forty minutes later she sank. Of the 2227 passengers and crew, 705 escaped in twenty lifeboats and rafts;