The early days of the automobile

КОНТРОЛЬНАЯ РАБОТА 4

вариант 2

(ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY)

& READING

Задание 1. Составьте возможные словосочетания с предложенными словами, запишите и переведите их.

A) A vehicle, b) an engine.

self-propelled gasoline (un)reliable four-stroke

multi-cylinder internal combustion (in)efficient steam-driven

Задание 2. Прочтите текст и выполните письменный перевод выделенного отрывка.

One of the earliest attempts to propel a vehicle by mechanical power was suggested by Isaac Newton. But the first self-propelled vehicle was constructed by the French military engineer Cugnot in 1763. He built a steam-driven engine which had three wheels, carried two passengers and ran at maximum speed of four miles. The carriage was a great achievement but it was far from perfect and extremely inefficient. The supply of steam lasted only 15 minutes and the carriage had to stop every 100 yards to make more steam.

In 1825 a steam engine was built in Great Britain. The vehicle carried 18 passengers and covered 8 miles in 45 minutes. However, the progress of motor cars met the great opposition in Great Britain. Further development of the motor car lagged because of the restrictions resulting from legislative acts. The mostfamous of these acts was the Red Flag Act of 1865, according to which the speed of the steam-driven vehicles was limited to 4 miles per hour and a man with a red flag had to walk in front оf it.

But there was a great need for a more efficient engine than the steam engine, for one without a huge boiler, the engine that could quickly be started and stopped. This problem was solved by the invention of the internal combustion engine. The first practical internal combustion engine was introduced in the form of a gas engine by the German engineer N. Otto in 1876. He introduced the four-stroke cycle of operations.

In 1896 a procession of motor cars took place from London to Brighton to show how reliable the new vehicles were. In fact, many of the cars broke, for the transmissions were still unreliable and constantly gave trouble.

The cars of that time were very small, two-seated cars with no roof, driven by an engine placed under the seat. Motorists had to carry large cans of fuel and separate spare tyres, for there were no repair or filling stations to serve them.

Constant efforts were made to standardize common components. Multi-cylinder engines came into use; most commonly used are four-cylinder engines. The motor-cycles steadily increased in popularity as engines and tyres became more reliable and roads improved.

Like most other great human achievements, the motor car is not the product of any single inventor. Gradually the development of vehicles driven by internal combustion engine-cars, as they had come to be known, led to the abolition of earlier restrictions. Huge capital began to flow into the automobile industry.

Задание 3. A) Запишите предложения в соответствии с последовательностью изложения информации в тексте.

Дата добавления: 2014-10-15