剑雅17 阅读真题Test1 Passage1题目

剑桥雅思17共收集了雅思真题4套，以下是羊驼小编整理了第一套雅思阅读真题、答案及解析，以下是阅读第1篇文章Test1 Passage1的原文及参考译文，供小伙伴们复习参考。供小伙伴们复习参考。想要了解更多关于剑雅17听力和阅读真题答案及解析的考生可查看剑桥雅思17听力阅读真题答案及解析汇总。

剑雅17 Test 1 Passage1阅读1-6题解析请查看剑雅17 Test 1 Passage1阅读1–3题答案解析和剑雅17 Test 1 Passage1阅读4–6题答案解析

READING PASSAGE  1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

The development of the London underground railway

In the first half of the 1800s, London’s population grew at an astonishing rate, and the central area became increasingly congested. In addition, the expansion of the overground railway network resulted in more and more passengers arriving in the capital. However, in 1846, a Royal Commission decided that the railways should not be allowed to enter the City, the capital’s historic and business centre. The result was that the overground railway stations formed a ring around the City. The area within consisted of poorly built, overcrowded slums and the streets were full of horse-drawn traffic. Crossing the City became a nightmare. It could take an hour and a half to travel 8 km by horse-drawn carriage or bus. Numerous schemes were proposed to resolve these problems, but few succeeded.

Amongst the most vocal advocates for a solution to London’s traffic problems was Charles Pearson, who worked as a solicitor for the City of London. He saw both social and economic advantages in building an underground railway that would link the overground railway stations together and clear London slums at the same time. His idea was to relocate the poor workers who lived in the inner-city slums to newly constructed suburbs, and to provide cheap rail travel for them to get to work. Pearson’s ideas gained support amongst some businessmen and in 1851 he    submitted a plan to Parliament. It was rejected, but coincided with a proposal from another group for an underground connecting line, which Parliament passed.

The two groups merged and established the Metropolitan Railway Company in August 1854. The company’s plan was to construct an underground railway line from the Great Western Railway’s    (GWR) station at Paddington to the edge of the City at Farringdon Street – a distance of almost    5 km. The organisation had difficulty in raising the funding for such a radical and expensive scheme, not least because of the critical articles printed by the press. Objectors argued that the tunnels would collapse under the weight of traffic overhead, buildings would be shaken and passengers would be poisoned by the emissions from the train engines. However, Pearson and his partners persisted.

The GWR, aware that the newline would finally enable them to run trains into the heart of the City, invested almost ?250,000 in the scheme. Eventually, over a five-year period, ?1m  was raised. The chosen route ran beneath existing main roads to minimise the expense ofdemolishing buildings. Originally scheduled to be completed in 21 months, the construction of the underground line took three years. It was built just below street level using a technique known as ‘cut and cover’. A trench about ten metres wide and six metres deep was dug, and the sides temporarily held up with timber beams. Brick walls were then constructed, and finally a brick  arch was added to create a tunnel. A two-metre-deeplayer of soil was laid on top of the tunnel and the road above rebuilt.

The Metropolitan line, which opened on 10 January 1863, was the world’s first underground railway. On its first day, almost 40,000 passengers were carried between Paddington and Farringdon, the journey taking about 18 minutes. By the end of the Metropolitan’s first year of operation, 9.5 million journeys had been made.

Even as the Metropolitan began operation, the first extensions to the line were being authorised;

these were built over the next five years, reaching Moorgate in the east of London and Hammersmith in the west. The original plan was to pull the trains with steam locomotives, using firebricks in the boilers to providesteam, but these engines were never introduced. Instead, the    line used specially designed locomotives that were fitted with water tanks in which steam could   be condensed. However, smoke and fumes remained a problem, even though ventilation shafts     were added to the tunnels.

Despite the extension of the underground railway, by the 1880s, congestion on London’s streets   had become worse. The problem was partly that the existing underground lines formed a circuit   around the centre of London and extended to the suburbs, but did not cross the capital’s centre.    The ‘cut and cover’ method of construction was not an option in this part of the capital. The only alternative was to tunnel deep underground.

Although the technology to create these tunnels existed, steam locomotives could not be used in    such a confined space. It wasn’t until the development of a reliable electric motor, and a means of transferring power from the generator to a moving train, that the world’s first deep-level electric    railway, the City & South London, became possible. The line opened in 1890, and ran from the City to Stockwell, south of the River Thames. The trains were made up of three carriages and driven by electric engines. The carriages were narrow and had tiny windows just below the roof because it was thought that passengers would not want to lookout at the tunnel walls. The line was not without its problems, mainly caused by an unreliable power supply. Although the City &  South London Railway was a great technical achievement, it did not make a profit. Then, in 1900, the Central London Railway, known as the ‘Tuppenny Tube’, began operation using new electric   locomotives. It was very popular and soon afterwards new railways and extensions were added to  the growing tube network. By 1907, the heart of today’s Underground system was in place.

参考译文

伦敦地铁的发展

在19世纪上半叶，伦敦的人口以惊人的速度增长，中心地区变得越来越拥挤。 此外，地面铁路网的扩张导致越来越多的乘客抵达首都。然而，1846年，皇家 委员会决定，不允许铁路进入首都历史和商业中心。结果，地面上火车站在城市 周围形成了一个环形。这片区域由建筑简陋、人满为患的贫民窟组成，街道上到 处都是马车。穿越城市成了一场噩梦。乘坐马车或公共汽车行驶8公里需要一个 半小时。为了解决这些问题，人们提出了许多方案，但很少成功。

查尔斯 ·皮尔森(Charles  Pearson)是解决伦敦交通问题呼声最高的倡导者之一，他 是伦敦金融城的一名律师。他看到了修建地下铁路的社会和经济优势，将地上火 车站连接在一起，同时清理伦敦的贫民窟。他的想法是将居住在市中心贫民窟的 贫困工人重新安置到新建的郊区，并为他们提供廉价的铁路交通来上班。皮尔逊 的想法得到了一些商人的支持，1851年他向议会提交了一份计划。这项提议被 否决了，但与此同时，另一个团体提出的地下连接线路的提议被议会通过。

1854年8月，这两个集团合并成立了大都会铁路公司。该公司的计划是建造一 条地下铁路线，从帕丁顿的大西部铁路站到城市边缘的法灵顿街-距离近5公 里。该组织很难为这样一个激进而昂贵的计划筹集资金，尤其是因为媒体发表了 批评文章。反对者认为隧道会在头顶车辆的重压下坍塌，建筑物会受到震动，乘 客会被火车引擎排放的废气毒死。然而，皮尔逊和他的合作伙伴坚持了下来。

GWR 意识到这条新线路最终将使他们能够在伦敦市中心运行列车，因此在该计 划中投资了近25万英镑。最终，在五年内，筹集了100万英镑。选定的路线位 于现有主要道路下方，以尽量减少拆除建筑物的费用。原计划在21个月内完成，

地下铁路建设耗时三年。它使用一种称为“切割和覆盖”的技术建造在街道下方。 挖了一条大约十米宽，六米深的沟，两边暂时用木梁架起来。然后建造了砖墙， 最后加了一个砖拱来建造隧道。隧道顶部铺设了两米深的土层，并重建了上面的 道路。

1863年1月10日开通的大都会铁路是世界上第一条地铁铁路。第一天，大约有 4万名乘客搭乘了帕丁顿和法灵顿之间的列车，全程大约18分钟。到大都会运 营的第一年结束，已经有950万人次出行。

就在大都会铁路开始运营时，该线路的第一批延长线已经得到批准；这些都是在 接下来的五年里建造的，到达了伦敦东部的摩尔盖特西边的哈默史密斯。最初的 计划是用蒸汽机车牵引列车，在锅炉中使用耐火砖提供蒸汽，但这些发动机从未 被引入。取而代之的是，这条生产线使用了专门设计的火车，这些火车配备了可 以冷凝蒸汽的水箱。然而，即使在隧道中增加了通风井，烟雾和烟雾仍然是一个 问题。

尽管地下铁路有所扩建，但到了19世纪80年代，伦敦街道的拥堵情况变得更加  严重。部分原因是现有的地下线路形成了一个回路环绕伦敦市中心并延伸至郊区， 但没有穿过首都中心。在首都这部分地区，“切割和覆盖”的施工方法不是一种选  择。唯一的选择是在地下深处挖隧道。

虽然创造这些隧道的技术已经存在，但蒸汽机车无法在如此狭窄的空间内使用。 直到开发出可靠的电动机，以及将电力从发电机传输到行驶中的火车的方法，世  界上第一条深层次的电气化铁路——伦敦城市与南区才成为可能。这条线路于  1890年开通，从纽约市到泰晤士河南岸的斯托克韦尔。火车由三节车厢组成，  由电动发动机驱动。车厢很窄，车顶下方有小窗户。因为人们认为乘客不想看到 隧道的墙壁。这条线路并非没有问题，主要是供电不可靠造成的。尽管伦敦&南 伦敦铁路是一项伟大的技术成就，但它没有盈利。然后，在1900年，被称为  “Tuppenne Tube”的伦敦中部铁路开始使用新的电力机车运营。它非常受欢迎的， 不久之后，新的铁路和扩建的地铁网络不断增长。到1907年，今天的地下系统  的核心已经就位。