36. A transportation vehicle that has changed people's lives
Choose one of the following transportation vehicles and explain why you think it has changed people's
lives.
• automobiles
• bicycles
• airplanes
Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
『分析』
根据[70]，应该选择automobiles。注意，要回答为什么...汽车改变了人们的生活。
汽车改变了人们的时间、空间观念，进而改变了人们的生活。
汽车使货物的远程运输成为可能，进而使人们可以购买更多的商品。
汽车使汽油变得格外重要，直接间接导致了很多中东地区的战争。
汽车使空气污染更加严重，导致人们的健康受到影响
『范文』
Automobiles, as the exponent of modern transportation vehicles, virtually have contributed to modern life more
than most people have imagined, even though automobiles, as is true of all other technologies, have also created
many problems.
The advancement of modern transportation, certainly including that of automobiles, has made more goods
available in local markets. For example, in China, some fruits are only cultivated in the southern part of the
country and not in the northern, such as litchi, sugarcane, pineapple—partly due to sheer gradient of temperature.
Thanks to the advancement of modern transportation system, people in the northern part of the country can now get
those southern cultivated fruits readily available in almost every local market. In the far past when such system
didn't exist, when goods could be transported only by primitive tools such as carts, some fruits such as litchi were
the privilege of imperial household.
At the same time, the development of modern transportation has also made goods in local markets much less
expensive. Take litchi for example again. Two decades ago, litchi was pretty expensive, and was a luxury. But the
development has made the transportation easier and the cost lower and lower. On the other hand, due to previous
Edited by Lost Lawyer
factors, more merchants are engaged in the business that simultaneously intensified the competition, which
certainly affected the prices. Thus, the price of litchi subsequently dropped. The same goes for other goods as well.
Today, people are able to buy almost any goods they want no matter where the origin of the goods is, and to make
choice among more counterparts, and the best of all, to take the goods home with less expenditure.
Moreover, advanced transportation vehicles such as automobiles have to some extent made people more
independent than before. It is not hard to imagine that 50 years ago a young widow who lived in a small village
and whose husband had died when she was 23 had little chance to get married again, for the sake of the tradition or
culture, or whatever. But if that happened in the present day, things would be entirely different. Advanced
transportation vehicles being readily available, she could easily get to another city within at most 2 days and by
lower expenses, say from the small village located in the north east of China to the far southern city, Guangzhou -
several thousands of miles away. That's a big city, that's a new city, and nobody knows her there; she has a brand new
start, and she is entirely independent.
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