（豫皖京闽粤通用）2017届高考英语北师大版一轮复习配套练习：book2 Unit 6《design》（含解析）_高考复习指南

（豫皖京闽粤通用）2017届高考英语北师大版一轮复习配套练习：book2 Unit 6《design》（含解析）

　　(建议用时8′)

　　We know the famous ones—the Thomas Edisons and the Alexander Graham Bells—but what about the less famous inventors？What about the people who invented the traffic light and the windshield wiper (雨刮器)？Shouldn’t we know who they are?

　　Joan McLean thinks so.In fact，McLean，a professor of physics at Mountain University in Range，feels so strongly about this matter that she’s developed a course on the topic.In addition to learning “who” invented “what”，however，McLean also likes her students to learn the answers to the “why” and “how” questions.According to McLean，“When students learn the answers to these questions，they are better prepared to recognize opportunities for inventing and more motivated to give inventing a try.”

　　Her students agree.One young man with a patent for an unbreakable umbrella is walking proof of McLean’s statement.“If I had not heard the story of the windshield wiper’s invention，” said Tommy Lee，a senior physics major，“I never would have dreamed of turning my bad experience during a rainstorm into something so constructive.” Lee is currently negotiating to sell his patent to an umbrella producer.

　　So，just what is the story behind the windshield wiper？Well，Mary Anderson came up with the idea in 1902 after a visit to New York City.The day was cold and stormy，but Anderson still wanted to see the sights，so she jumped aboard a streetcar.Noticing that the driver was struggling to see through the snow covering the windshield，she found herself wondering why there couldn’t be a builtin device for cleaning the window.Still wondering about this when she returned home to Birmingham，Alabama，Anderson started drafting out solutions.One of her ideas，a lever (操作杆) on the inside of a vehicle that would control an arm on the outside，became the first windshield wiper.