2016年下半年英语四级考试就要来临了，各位同学复习得怎样了呢?下面是yjbys网小编提供给大家关于英语四级考试阅读训练及答案，希望对同学们的复习有所帮助。
Look at the keyboard of any standard typewriter or computer. "Q," "W," "E," "R," "T" and "Y" are the first six letters. Who decided on this arrangement of the letters? And why?
People tried for centuries to invent the typewriter. In 1714 in England, Henry Mill filed a patent for a machine called An Artificial Machine or Method for the Impressing or Transcribing of Letters, Singly or Progressively one after another, as in Writing, whereby all Writing whatsoever may be Engrossed in Paper or Parchment so Neat and Exact as not to be distinguished from Print. That machine probably didn’ t sell because no one could remember its name!
The first practical typewriter was patented in the United States in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes. His machine was known as the type-writer. It had a movable carriage, a lever for turning paper from line to line, and a keyboard on which the letters were arranged in alphabetical order.
But Sholes had a problem. On his first model, his "ABC" key arrangement caused the keys to jam when the typist worked quickly. Sholes didn’ t know how to keep the keys from sticking, so his solution was to keep the typist from typing too es asked his brother-in-law to rearrange the keyboard so that the commonest letters were not so close together and the type bars would come from opposite directions. Thus they would not clash together and jam the new arrangement was the QWERTY arrangement typists use today. Of course, Sholes claimed that the new arrangement was scientific and would add speed and efficiency. The only efficiency it added was to slow the typist down, since almost any word in the English language required the typist’ s fingers to cover more distance on the keyboard.
The advantages of the typewriter outweighed the disadvantages of the keyboard. Typists memorized the crazy letter arrangement, and the typewriter became a huge success. By the time typists had memorized the new arrangement of letters and built their speed, typewriter technology had improved, and the keys didn’ t stick as badly as they had at first.
know from the passage that the inventor of the first practical typewriter is_____.
y Mill stopher Latham Sholes es’brother-in-law ert Einstein
author thinks the machine invented by Henry Mill could not be sold because_____.
was difficult for people to accept new things e were great disadvantages of the keyboard
machine could not be distinguished from print name of the machine was too long
es decided the QWERTY arrangement of the keyboard in order to_____.
nge the letters in alphabetical order e the keys to jam when the typist worked quickly
e the problem of the keys jamming ete with "ABC" key arrangement
is inferred that the QWERTY arrangement of the keyboard_____.
the most scientific arrangement speed and efficiency of typists
s the typist from typing too fast easy for typists to memorize
h of the following can be the best title of the passage?
Arrangement of The Letters on Keyboard Story of Christopher Latham Sholes
to Invent The Typewriter First Practical Typewriter
答案：BDCCA
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