（湖北专用）高考英语一轮复习 专题十七 词义猜测.doc

专题十七词义猜测 Passage 1(2014 湖北,E) 体裁: 说明文词数:342 For most city people,the elevator is an unremarkable machine that inspires none of the enthusiasm or interest that Americans afford trains,jets,and even Wilk isa member ofa small group of elevator experts who consider this a the elevator,they point out,there could be no downtown skyscrapers or tall buildings,and city life as we know it would be that sense,they argue,the elevator s role in American history has been no less significant than that of fact,according to Wilk,the car and the elevator have been locked ina“ secret war ” for over a century,with cars making it possible for people to spread horizontally( 水平地),and elevators pushing them toward life in close groups of towering vertical( 垂直的)columns. If we tend to ignore the significance of elevators,it might be because riding in them tends to be such a brief,boring,and even awkward experience — one that can involve unexpectedly meeting people with whom we have nothing mon,and an unpleasant awareness of the fact that we re hanging from a cable ina long passage. Ina new book,Lifted,German journalist and cultural studies professor Andreas Bernard directed all his attention to this experience,studying the origins of elevator and its relationship to humankind and finding that riding in an elevator has never been a fortable experience. “ After 150 years,we are still not used to it, ” Bernard said. “ We still have not exactly learned to cope with the mixture of closeness and displeasure. ” That mixture,according to Bernard,sets the elevator ride apart from just about every other situation we find ourselves in as we go about our lives. Today,as the world s urban population explodes,and cities e more crowded,taller,and more crowded,America s total number of elevators — 900,000 at last count,according to Elevator World magazine s“ 2012 Vertical Transportation Industry ”— are a force that s ing more important t