The greatest contribution to civilization last century may well be the air-conditioning, and amazing is the speed at which this

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问题     The greatest contribution to civilization last century may well be the air-conditioning, and amazing is the speed at which this situation came to be in America. Air-conditioning began to spread in industries as a production aid during World War II. Today most Americans need to take air-conditioning for granted to homes, offices, factories, theatres, shops, studios, schools, hotels, and restaurants.
    But not everybody is aware that high cost and easy comfort are merely two of the effects of the vast cooling of American. In fact, air conditioning has substantially altered the country’s character and customs.
    Many of the byproducts are so conspicuous that they are scarcely noticed. To begin with, air-conditioning transformed the face of America by making possible those glassy, boxy, sealed-in skyscrapers. It has been indispensable, no less, to the functioning of sensitive advanced computers, whose high operating temperatures require that they be constantly cooled. . .
    It has, at will, forced families into retreating into families with closed doors and shut windows, reducing the interactions of neighborhood life. It is really surprising that the public’s often noted withdrawal into self-pursuit and privacy has coincided with the historic spread of air-conditioning. Though science has little studied how habitual air-conditioning affects mind and body, some medical experts suggest that, like other technical avoidance of natural variations in climate, air-conditioning may damage the human capacity to adapt to stress. If so, air-conditioning is only like many other greatly useful technical developments that liberate man from nature by increasing his productivity and power in some way—while indirectly weakening him in others.
Who benefits the least from air-conditioning according to the author?

选项 A、Medical experts.
B、Manufacturers.
C、Factory laborers.
D、Consumers.

答案D

解析 Consumers是最精确的。原文直接批判空调的一句话是“…forced families intoretreating into families with closed doors and shut windows,reducing the interactions of neighborhoodlife,显然according to the author,consumers”为从空调中受益最少的。而ABC三个选项中,B,C可以作为by increasing his productivity的受益者,A的工作性质则完全与空调无关。
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本试题收录于: 英语题库普高专升本分类
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