A.Water.
B.Deep water Vessels.
C.Water Transport.
D.Logistical Management.
37、(同36题)Which of the following statements is true according to the article?
A.Steamboats are the original sailing vessels.
B.Steam power was followed by diesel power.
C.Deepwater and navigable inland water transport equivalents.
D.There is domestic commerce in the Atlantic Ocean.
38、(同36题)What is the main reason someone might decide to use water transport?
A.It is fast and efficient.
B.Very large loads can be moved.
C.Delivery is never dependent on railways and trucks.
D.It is the most flexible method.
39、(同36题)What relationship exists between railroads and inland water transport?
A.Labor restrictions prevent the two from handling the same traffic and have prevented competition from developing.
B.Railroads carry different commodities and thus are not in direct competition with water transport.
C.They sometimes compete with one another.
D.Railroads are never routed along the same routes as water transport so the two do not compete.
40、(同36题)Which of the following best describes the tone of the passage?
A.Expansive.
B.Argumentative.
C.Factual.
D.Ideological.
41、第五篇 The Railway Industry The railroad industry could not have grown as large as it did without stee l. The first rails were made of iron. But iron rails were not strong enough to s upport heavy trains running at high speeds. Railroad executives wanted to replac e them with steel rails because steel was ten or fifteen times stronger and last ed twenty times longer. Before the 1870’s, however, steel was too expensive to b e widely used. It was made by a slow and expensive process of heating, stirring, and reheating iron ore. Then the inventor Henry Bessemer discovered that directing a blast of air at melted iron in a furnace would burn out the impurities that made the iron bri ttle. As the air shot through the furnace, the bubbling metal would erupt in; sh owers of sparks. When the fire cooled, the metal had been changed, or converted, to steel. The bessemer converter made possible the mass production of steel. No w three to five tons of iron could be changed into steel in a matter of minutes. Just when the demand for more and more steel developed, prospectors discov ered huge new deposits of iron ore in the Mesabi Range, a 120milelong region in Minnesota near Lake Superior. The Mesabi deposits were so near the surface tha t they could be mined with steam shovels. Barges and steamers carried the iron o re through Lake Superior to depots on the southern shores of Lake Michigan and W ake Erie. With dizzying speed Gary, Indiana, and Toledo, Youngstown, and Clevela nd, Ohio, became major steelmanufacturing centers. Pittsburgh was the greatest steel city of all. Steel was the basic building material of the industrial age. Production sk yrocketed from seventyseven thousand tons in 1870 to over eleven million tons in 1900.According to the passage, the railroad industry preferred steel to iron because steel was