CRE 英文 Use of English 試題題庫｜2026 練習＋Level 2 Pass 攻略

Many great inventions are initially greeted with ridicule and disbelief. The invention of the airplane was no exception. Although many people who heard about the first powered flight on December 17, 1903 were excited and impressed, others reacted with peals of laughter. The idea of flying an aircraft was repulsive to some people. Such people called Wilbur and Orville Wright, the inventors of the first flying machine, impulsive fools. Negative reactions, however, did not stop the Wrights. Impelled by their desire to succeed, they continued their experiments in aviation.\\n\\nOrville and Wilbur Wright had always had a compelling interest in aeronautics and mechanics. As young boys they earned money by making and selling kites and mechanical toys. Later, they designed a newspaper-folding machine, built a printing press, and operated a bicycle-repair shop. In 1896, when they read about the death of Otto Lilienthal, the brothers’ interest in flight grew into a compulsion.\\n\\nLilienthal, a pioneer in hang-gliding, had controlled his gliders by shifting his body in the desired direction. This idea was repellent to the Wright brothers, however, and they searched for more efficient methods to control the balance of airborne vehicles. In 1900 and 1901, the Wrights tested numerous gliders and developed control techniques. The brothers’ inability to obtain enough lift power for the gliders almost led them to abandon their efforts.\\n\\nAfter further study, the Wright brothers concluded that the published tables of air pressure on curved surfaces must be wrong. They set up a wind tunnel and began a series of experiments with model wings. Because of their efforts, the old tables were repealed in time and replaced by the first reliable figures for air pressure on curved surfaces. This work, in turn, made it possible for the brothers to design a machine that would fly. In 1903 the Wrights built their first airplane, which cost less than $1,000. They even designed and built their own source of propulsion-a lightweight gasoline engine. When they started the engine on December 17, the airplane pulsated wildly before taking off. The plane managed to stay aloft for 12 seconds, however, and it flew 120 feet.\\n\\nBy 1905, the Wrights had perfected the first airplane that could turn, circle, and remain airborne for half an hour at a time. Others had flown in balloons and hang gliders, but the Wright brothers were the first to build a full-size machine that could fly under its own power. As the contributors of one of the most outstanding engineering achievements in history, the Wright brothers are accurately called the fathers of aviation.\\n\\nQ: The Wrights’ interest in flight grew into a ______.

“Old woman,” grumbled the burly white man who had just heard Sojourner Truth speak, “do you think your talk about slavery does any good? I don’t care any more for your talk than I do for the bite of a flea.”\\n\\nThe tall, imposing black woman turned her piercing eyes on him. “Perhaps not,” she answered, “but I’ll keep you scratching.”\\n\\nThe little incident of the 1840s sums up all that Sojourner Truth was: utterly dedicated to spreading her message, afraid of no one, and both forceful and witty in speech.\\n\\nYet 40 years earlier, who could have suspected that a spindly slave girl growing up in a damp cellar in upstate New York would become one of the most remarkable women in American history? Her name then was Isabella Baumfree, and by the time she was 14 years old she had seen both parents die of cold and hunger. She herself had been sold several times. By 1827, when New York freed its slaves, she had married and given birth to four children.\\n\\nThe first hint of Isabella’s fighting spirit came soon afterwards, when her youngest son was illegally seized and sold. She marched to the courthouse and badgered officials until her son was returned to her.\\n\\nIn 1843, inspired by religion, she changed her name to Sojourner (meaning “one who stays briefly”) Truth and, with only pennies in her purse, set out to preach against slavery. From New England to Minnesota she trekked, gaining a reputation for her plain but powerful and moving words. Incredibly, despite being black and female (only white males were expected to be public speakers), she drew thousands to town halls, tents, and churches to hear her powerful, deep-voiced pleas on equality for blacks-and for women. Often she had to face threatening hoodlums. Once she stood before armed bullies and sang a hymn to them. Awed by her courage and her commanding presence, they sheepishly retreated.\\n\\nDuring the Civil War she cared for homeless ex-slaves in Washington, D.C. President Lincoln invited her to the White House to bestow praise on her. Later, she petitioned Congress to help former slaves get land in the West. Even in her old age, she forced the city of Washington, D.C. to integrate its trolley cars so that black and white passengers could ride together.\\n\\nShortly before her death at the age of 90, she was asked what kept her going. “I think of the great things,” replied Sojourner.\\n\\nQ: When New York freed its slaves, Isabella had_____

Adapted from The Frontier in American History, by Frederick Jackson Turner\\n\\nBut the larger part of what has been distinctive and valuable in America's contribution to the history of the human spirit has been due to this nation's peculiar experience in extending its type of frontier into new regions—and in creating peaceful societies with new ideals in the successive vast and differing geographic provinces which together make up the United States. Directly or indirectly these experiences shaped the life of both the Eastern and Western States, and even reacted upon the Old World, influencing the direction of its thought and progress. This experience has been fundamental in the economic, political, and social characteristics of the American people and in their conceptions of their destiny.\\n\\nWriting at the close of 1796, the French minister to the United States, M. Adet, reported to his government that Jefferson could not be relied on to be devoted to French interests, and he added that "Jefferson, I say, is American, and by that name, he cannot be sincerely our friend. An American is the born enemy of all European peoples." Obviously erroneous as are these words, there was an element of truth in them. If we would understand this element of truth, we must study the transforming influence of the American wilderness, remote from Europe, and by its resources and its free opportunities affording the conditions under which a new people, with new social and political types and ideals, could arise to play its own part in the world, and to influence Europe.\\n\\nThe main idea of the passage is __________.

Adapted from Seven Discourses Delivered in the Royal Academy By the President by Joshua Reynolds (1778)\\n\\nAll the objects which are exhibited to our view by nature, upon close examination will be found to have their blemishes and defects. The most beautiful forms have something about them like weakness, minuteness, or imperfection. But it is not every eye that perceives these blemishes. It must be an eye long used to the contemplation and comparison of these forms—and which, by a long habit of observing what any set of objects of the same kind have in common, that alone can acquire the power of discerning what each wants in particular. This long laborious comparison should be the first study of the painter who aims at the greatest style. By this means, he acquires a just idea of beautiful forms; he corrects nature by herself, her imperfect state by her more perfect. His eye being enabled to distinguish the accidental deficiencies, excrescences, and deformities of things from their general figures, he makes out an abstract idea of their forms more perfect than any one original—and what may seem a paradox, he learns to design naturally by drawing his figures unlike to any one object. This idea of the perfect state of nature, which the artist calls the ideal beauty, is the great leading principle by which works of genius are conducted. By this, Phidias acquired his fame. He wrought upon a sober principle what has so much excited the enthusiasm of the world—and by this method you, who have courage to tread the same path, may acquire equal reputation.\\n\\nThe author would NOT agree with the statement that __________.

Adapted from The Frontier in American History, by Frederick Jackson Turner\\n\\nBut the larger part of what has been distinctive and valuable in America's contribution to the history of the human spirit has been due to this nation's peculiar experience in extending its type of frontier into new regions—and in creating peaceful societies with new ideals in the successive vast and differing geographic provinces which together make up the United States. Directly or indirectly these experiences shaped the life of both the Eastern and Western States, and even reacted upon the Old World, influencing the direction of its thought and progress. This experience has been fundamental in the economic, political, and social characteristics of the American people and in their conceptions of their destiny.\\n\\nWriting at the close of 1796, the French minister to the United States, M. Adet, reported to his government that Jefferson could not be relied on to be devoted to French interests, and he added that "Jefferson, I say, is American, and by that name, he cannot be sincerely our friend. An American is the born enemy of all European peoples." Obviously erroneous as are these words, there was an element of truth in them. If we would understand this element of truth, we must study the transforming influence of the American wilderness, remote from Europe, and by its resources and its free opportunities affording the conditions under which a new people, with new social and political types and ideals, could arise to play its own part in the world, and to influence Europe.\\n\\nThe author views Europe and America as __________.