問題詳情
V. Reading Comprehension (30%) A.At the turn of the nineteenth century, Concord was a thriving community, already famous throughout the youngnation for its critical early role in the events leading up to the American Revolution. It was the half shire town forMiddlesex County, attracting over 500 visitors to the courts twice a year, among them customers for Concord’s hats, shoes,carriages and clocks. Among Concord’s approximately 400 heads of households in this period, about 65% were inagriculture, 4% in commerce, and 35% in manufacturing. Of those in manufacturing, seven men headed clockmakingshops and another thirty or so were engaged in the shops or in businesses that supplied the clockmaking trade – the brassfoundry, iron forge, wire-drawing mill, and a number of cabinetmaking shops. In short, the center of Concord, the Milldam,was a machine for the production of clocks, second only in importance to Boston’s industrial Roxbury Neck, where theinfluential Willard family had been producing clocks since about 1785. While the handsome and well-crafted clocks of these seven shops, featuring inlaid mahogany cases, enameled dialsand reverse painted glasses, are generally perceived as products of a traditional clockmaker (one person at a benchfashioning an eight-day clock from scratch), they are actually products of a network of shops employing journeymen laborthat extended from Concord to Boston and overseas to the highly developed tool trade of Lancashire, England. In addition to crafting in the fashionable Willard features such as the pierced fretwork, columns with brass fixtures,and white enamel dial, Concord clockmakers attempted to differentiate their products from those of the Willards throughsuch means as a distinctive ornamental inlay, which added to the perception of custom work not usually seen on the Willard’s standardized products. The Willards also made less expensive wall clocks, including “banjo clocks” patented bySimon Willard in 1802. The banjo clock normally lacks a striking mechanism and indicates time only by its hands and dial,for which reason some horologists may insist upon calling it a timepiece rather than a true clock. In popular usage though,no such distinction is made. The banjo style of wooden case usually features a round opening for a painted dial, along-waisted throat, and rectangular pendulum box with hinged door. Both the throat and door are ornamented withreverse-painted glass panels, and the case is usually flanked by curved and pierced brass frets. A finial mounted atop thecase usually takes the form of a cast-brass eagle or a turned, giltwood acorn. The distinctive diamond shaped design andinverted movement of some Concord wall clocks may reflect an attempt to circumvent Willard’s patent.
【題組】36. What is the passage primarily about?
(A) Clockmaking in Concord at the turn of the nineteenth century.
(B) The importance of Concord in the nineteenth century.
(C) Competition between Concord clockmakers and the Willards.
(D) The influence of the Willards on clockmaking in Concord.
參考答案
答案：A
難度：適中0.4
統計：A(2),B(0),C(3),D(0),E(0)