Question

Concorde’s Birthday

CONCORDE, the world’s fastest passenger plane, will soon be over 33 years old. It first __51__ on 2 March 1969 in France. Concorde was developed by both France and Britain. From 1956 these two countries had a _52__ of a supersonic passenger plane. In 1962 they started to __53__ together on the project. The plane __54_ over 1.5 billion pounds to develop. It is the most tested plane in the history. It was given over 5000 hours of testing. Concorde flies at twice the speed of _55__. This means that it _56_ only 3 hours 25 minutes to fly between London and New York, compare with 7—8 hours in other passenger jets. Because of the five-hour time difference between the USA and Britain, it is _57__ to travel west on Concorde and arrive in New York before you leave London! You can catch the 10:30a.m. _58__ from London, Heathrow and start work in New York an hour _59_! Concorde is much used by business people and film stars. Each Concorde is built at a cost of 55 million pounds. Twenty have been built so far. Air France and British Airway _60_ the most. They each have seven planes.

1.A. invented    B. produced    C. flew      D. took off

2.A. talk        B. dream      C. meeting   D. fight

3.A. work       B. do         C. carry      D. finish

4.A. paid        B. wanted     C. needed     D. cost

5.A. voice       B. sound      C. noise      D. shout

6.A. spends      B. takes       C. covers     D. travels

7.A. possible     B. impossible   C. real       D. unreal

8.A. plane       B. passenger    C. flight      D. airline

9.A. later        B. late         C. earlier      D. early

10.A. build       B. make      C. sell        D. own

Answer

1.C

2.B

3.A

4.D

5.B

6.A

7.C

8.C

9.A

10.D

【解析】

试题分析：本文讲解的是关于世界上最快的客机——协和式飞机（CONDORDE）的发展史。３３年的历史、英法联手打造、耗资十多个亿、两倍于声速……

1.结合上文可知it指的是前文提到的协和飞机，本句如选invented或 produced，得用被动语态，took off是“起飞”的意思，这里意指“它第一次飞行是在……”因此，用flew最为恰当。句意为：他在1969年3月2日首飞。故选C。

2.联系上下文可知句意为：从1956年开始这两个国家就有一个关于超音速客机的梦想，故选B。

3.work on 从事，致力于。句意：在1962年他们开始一起从事这个项目。故选A。

4.cost“耗资”。paid，wanted的主语应是人，needed指根据计划需要耗资等的数量，cost本身就表示花费成本的数量。联系下文15亿英镑，主语为物，故选D，研制这个飞机花费了15亿英镑。

5.词义辨析。Voice嗓音； sound指一般声音；noise噪音；shout喊声。联系上文可知句意为协和客机以两倍音速飞行。此处泛指普通声音，speed of sound意为“声速”故选 B。

6.考查take表示花费的用法。主语是it可知选A。句式：it takes some time/money to do sth。

7.根据上下文之间的联系，意为“你坐协和式飞机从London到New York，有可能已经到了New York，而还没离开London。（这是由于时差）。

故选A。

8.catch the flight 意为“赶上某次航班”。故选C。

9.根据上文可知句意为：一小时后在纽约开始工作，故选B，an hour later，一小时后。

10.通过上下文可知，这两个机场所拥有的协和式飞机最多。故选D。

考点：关于协和客机的说明文