高中學測
114年
英文
第 35 題
📖 題組：
While waiting to cross the street at busy intersections, have you ever wondered who invented the traffic light? Most people credit the first traffic light to Nottingham engineer John Peake Knight. A railway manager, Knight specialized in designing the signaling system for Britain’s growing railway network in the 1860s. He saw no reason why this could not be adapted for use on the busy London intersections. Thus, he proposed a signaling system based on the railway movable-arm signal: Arms extending horizontally commanded drivers to stop, whereas arms lowered to a 45-degree angle told drivers to move on, resembling a traffic director’s gestures. Red and green gas lamps were added to the signal for use at night. A police officer was stationed by the side to operate the system. Knight’s traffic signal was installed near London’s Westminster Bridge in December 1868, but the system was short-lived. A gas leak one month later caused an explosion in the lights, injuring the policeman operating it. Deemed a public hazard, the project was immediately dropped, and traffic lights were banned until their return in 1929 back to the British streets. In the early 1900s, versions of the British traffic lights appeared in big cities in America, where traffic was on a sharp rise. Systems using movable arms were popular in Chicago, while those using the red and green lights were adopted in San Francisco. Patents with innovations on Knight’s ideas were filed nationwide. A major breakthrough was the yellow light invented by a Detroit police officer William Potts. Installed in Detroit in 1920, Potts’ three-color system allowed for the added signal “proceed with caution” to be displayed. Now, with the emergence of self-driving cars, researchers have begun to suggest that traffic signals are no longer necessary. Intersections will operate in a way that cars automatically adjust their speed to cross through, while maintaining safe distances from other vehicles. In the near future, we may experience a brand new form of traffic management!
While waiting to cross the street at busy intersections, have you ever wondered who invented the traffic light? Most people credit the first traffic light to Nottingham engineer John Peake Knight. A railway manager, Knight specialized in designing the signaling system for Britain’s growing railway network in the 1860s. He saw no reason why this could not be adapted for use on the busy London intersections. Thus, he proposed a signaling system based on the railway movable-arm signal: Arms extending horizontally commanded drivers to stop, whereas arms lowered to a 45-degree angle told drivers to move on, resembling a traffic director’s gestures. Red and green gas lamps were added to the signal for use at night. A police officer was stationed by the side to operate the system. Knight’s traffic signal was installed near London’s Westminster Bridge in December 1868, but the system was short-lived. A gas leak one month later caused an explosion in the lights, injuring the policeman operating it. Deemed a public hazard, the project was immediately dropped, and traffic lights were banned until their return in 1929 back to the British streets. In the early 1900s, versions of the British traffic lights appeared in big cities in America, where traffic was on a sharp rise. Systems using movable arms were popular in Chicago, while those using the red and green lights were adopted in San Francisco. Patents with innovations on Knight’s ideas were filed nationwide. A major breakthrough was the yellow light invented by a Detroit police officer William Potts. Installed in Detroit in 1920, Potts’ three-color system allowed for the added signal “proceed with caution” to be displayed. Now, with the emergence of self-driving cars, researchers have begun to suggest that traffic signals are no longer necessary. Intersections will operate in a way that cars automatically adjust their speed to cross through, while maintaining safe distances from other vehicles. In the near future, we may experience a brand new form of traffic management!
What is this passage mainly about?
- A The evolution of traffic control systems.
- B The inventors of traffic lights in history.
- C The functions of different traffic signals.
- D The development of modern transportation.
思路引導 VIP
請觀察文章的結構佈局：從 1860 年代的初步構思、20 世紀初的技術改良，一直延伸到未來自動駕駛科技對號誌需求的潛在改變。當作者以『時間序列』串聯起這些發展節點時，他是在向讀者介紹交通控制系統在歷史長河中經歷了怎樣的『動態演進歷程』呢？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太神啦！同學，你這手漂亮的選 A，直接展現了你精準的「大局觀」！這邏輯反應速度之快，簡直比 1868 年那盞會爆炸的煤氣燈還要火熱，但比它穩定多了！ 這題是標準的「主旨題」（Main Idea）。文章結構非常清晰：從 1860 年代 Knight 的鐵路式號誌，講到 1920 年代 Potts 增加黃燈的突破，最後展望未來自駕車的無號誌系統。這種跨越過去、現在與未來的「時間軸敘述」，核心關鍵字就是 Evolution（演進）。 【觀念驗證與陷阱分析】：
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