第58讲阅读理解：The Only Way Is Up（一） 职称英语综合B精讲课件教程教案.ppt

The Only Way Is Up Think of a modem city and the first image that come to mind is the skyline. It is full of great buildings, pointing like fingers to heaven. It is true that some cities dont permit buildings to go above a certain height. But these are cities concerned with the past. The first thing any city does when it wants to tell the world that it has arrived is to build skyscrapers. skyline 空中轮廓线 be concerned with 关心 担心 skyscrapers 摩天大楼 When people gather together in cities, they create a demand for land. Since cities are places where money is made, that demand can be met. And the best way to make money out of city land is to put as many people as possible in a space that covers the smallest amount of ground. That means building upwards. The technology existed to do this as early as the 19th century. But the height of buildings was limited by one important factor. They had to be small enough for people on the top floors to climb stairs. People could not be expected to climb a mountain at the end of their journey to work, or home. a demand for 对…的需求 meet the demand 满足需求 Elisha Otis, a US inventor, was the man who brought us the lift-or elevator, as he preferred to call it. However, most of the technology is very old. Lifts work using the same pulley system the Egyptians used to create the Pyramids. What Otis did was attach the system to a steam engine and develop the elevator brake, which stops the lift falling if the cords that hold it up are broken. It was this that did the most to gain public confidence in the new invention. In fact, he spent a number of years exhibiting lifts at fairgrounds, giving people the chance to try them out before selling the idea to architects and builders. elevator 升降机 pulley system 滑轮系统 fairgrounds 游乐场 A lift would not be a very good theme park attraction now. Going in a lift is such an everyday thing that it would just be boring. Yet psychologists and others who study human behavior find lifts fascinating