IELTS Reading 練習 自行車的歷史（含題目+詳解）

A Brief History of the Bicycle

A. The modern bicycle is so unremarkable a feature of urban life that it is easy to forget how young the technology actually is. The earliest two-wheeled human-powered vehicle generally accepted as an ancestor of today's bicycle was patented in 1817 by Karl von Drais, a German civil servant. His "running machine" had two wooden wheels in line, a wooden frame and a steerable front wheel, but no pedals. The rider pushed the ground with both feet. Slow and uncomfortable, it briefly attracted fashionable attention before disappearing.

B. Pedals arrived in the 1860s. French craftsmen attached cranks directly to the front wheel, producing the velocipede — a metal-framed but still wooden-wheeled machine nicknamed the "boneshaker" for the experience of riding it on cobblestones. Because the pedals were on the front wheel, increasing speed required making the front wheel larger. By the 1870s this logic had produced the famous high-wheeler, with a front wheel up to 1.5 metres in diameter. It was fast and graceful but dangerous: a stone in the road could throw the rider over the handlebars from a considerable height.

C. The decisive innovation arrived in the 1880s and is associated with the British engineer John Kemp Starley. His "Rover Safety Bicycle" of 1885 placed two wheels of equal, modest size and connected the pedals to the rear wheel by a chain. The geometry made the machine stable, easy to mount and far harder to fall from. Within a decade the safety bicycle had displaced the high-wheeler almost completely, and bicycle ownership in Britain rose from a few thousand enthusiasts to several million riders by 1900.

D. The social effects were considerable. Bicycles offered cheap independent travel to clerks and factory workers who could not afford horses, and to women whose movement had been previously constrained by both cost and convention. Susan B. Anthony, the American suffragist, remarked that the bicycle had "done more to emancipate women" than anything else of her time.

E. Twentieth-century refinements — pneumatic tyres, derailleur gears, lighter alloys — improved comfort and performance, but the basic geometry of the safety bicycle has barely changed in 140 years. Few inventions have proved so finished on first arrival.

The passage has five paragraphs, A-E. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B, C, and D from the list below.

• i. Wider freedoms on two wheels
• ii. A wooden start without pedals
• iii. Pedals, oversized wheels and danger
• iv. A geometry that has barely changed
• v. The chain-driven breakthrough
• vi. Rivalry between French and British makers

1. Paragraph B
2. Paragraph C
3. Paragraph D

1. Karl von Drais's running machine was popular for many decades after 1817.
2. The Rover Safety Bicycle replaced the high-wheeler within roughly ten years.
3. Susan B. Anthony designed her own model of bicycle.

Complete the sentences below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

1. The velocipede was nicknamed the ______ because of its rough ride on cobblestones.
2. In the safety bicycle, the pedals are connected to the rear wheel by a ______.
3. Compared with horses, bicycles offered factory workers cheap ______ travel.

1. iii — Pedals, oversized wheels and danger Paragraph B introduces pedals, the high-wheeler with a 1.5-metre front wheel, and explicitly says it was "fast and graceful but dangerous". All three elements appear.

2. v — The chain-driven breakthrough Paragraph C: "connected the pedals to the rear wheel by a chain". "Decisive innovation" matches "breakthrough"; "chain-driven" is exact.

3. i — Wider freedoms on two wheels Paragraph D is entirely about how bicycles gave independent travel to clerks, factory workers and women. The Anthony quote on emancipation seals the heading.

4. FALSE Supporting sentence: "it briefly attracted fashionable attention before disappearing". "Briefly" contradicts "many decades".

5. TRUE Supporting sentence: "Within a decade the safety bicycle had displaced the high-wheeler almost completely". "Within a decade" = "within roughly ten years".

6. NOT GIVEN The passage quotes Anthony's praise of the bicycle but says nothing about her designing one. Don't infer — NOT GIVEN.

7. boneshaker Supporting sentence: "a metal-framed but still wooden-wheeled machine nicknamed the 'boneshaker' for the experience of riding it on cobblestones". Single-word answer.

8. chain Supporting sentence: "connected the pedals to the rear wheel by a chain". Single word, exact match.

9. independent Supporting sentence: "Bicycles offered cheap independent travel to clerks and factory workers". Single-word answer; the question supplies "cheap".