2. Прочитайте текст снова и письменно ответьте на вопросы:

1. Why do we need alternative vehicles?

2. When was the first electric car built?

3. What are the characteristics of Solar Electric’s Destiny 2000?

4. How is Impact powered?

5. What is the advantage of the hybrid car?

Вариант 2

1. Прочитайте и письменно переведите на русский язык текст:

TRANSPORTATION FOR THE 21st CENTURY

1. Experts estimate that in the 21st century we will go by rocket from New York to Tokyo in 30 minutes. We will be able to reach any point on the globe from any other point through tunnels deep in the earth. The prospect is adventurous and exciting. It's possible, that within the next two or three decades we will be riding remote-controlled electronic cars.

2. Trips through metropolitan areas will be made on quiet, swift buses travelling on separate express lines of city streets. Helicopters may carry whole buses loaded with passengers from point to point above city traffic. "Flying crane" helicopters soon may help solve the complicated problem of getting passengers from the centre to the airport and back again.

3. Most of the advances in air transportation will materialize within the next few years. The largest airplane ever designed for commercial service, capable of seating nearly 500 passengers, is already being built. Supersonic transport prototypes now in development are forerunners of a new generation of 1,800 miles per hour passenger jet-liners. The "ideal" short-haul air transport is a vertical or short take-off and landing aircraft that can fly 30 to 45 passengers right into the heart of a city or its suburbs trips up to 260 miles.

4. Mankind has entered an age of high speeds, pressures, and temperatures which could be generated and withstood only with the help of new and hitherto unknown materials. In the 1920s the top speed of an airplane was not more than 200 kilometres per hour, the load per square metre of the wing area was about kilograms. The main construction material was wood. In our day, the speed of aircraft even passenger planes, is approaching 3,000 kilometres per hour, loads may be as high as 600 kilograms per square metre of wing. The turbine that drives such an aircraft is not only a miracle of design; it is also a miracle of materials strength. Its blades, for example, rotate at a tremendous speed and at the temperature greater man 1,000° Centigrade. The given examples are sufficient to indicate the complexity of materials studies today and the extent to which progress in the near or more distant future depends on them.

2. Прочитайте текст снова и письменно ответьте на вопросы:

1. How long will it take people to get from New York to Tokyo in the 21st century?

2. What transport will people use in the next two or three decades?

3. How will people travel within the city?

4. By what transport will the passengers get from the centre to the airport?

5. How many passengers will the new planes seat?

Вариант 3

1. Прочитайте и письменно переведите на русский язык текст:

AUTOMOBILE PRODUCTION

1. Specialists in automobile industry deal with designing and manufacturing cars, so they should know that the production of the automobile comprises the following phases: a) designing, b) working out the technology of manufacturing processes, c) laboratory tests, d) road tests, e) mass production (manufacturing).

2. Why is it necessary to know all these facts? It is important to know them as before the automobile (car or truck) is put into mass production, it should be properly designed and the automobile must meet up-to-date requirements.

3. What are these requirements? The automobile must have high efficiency, long service life, driving safety, ease of maintenance and pleasant appearance. In order to obtain all these qualities engineers should develop up-to-date methods of designing cars, using new types of resistant to corrosion light materials. Also it is important to know computer science because it is intended to shorten the time between designing and manufacturing. Computers offer quick and optimal solutions of problems.

4. But before the car is put into mass production all its units and mechanisms are subjected to tests, first in the plant's laboratory, then the car undergoes a rigid quality control in road tests. Only then the car is put into mass production. Why are these tests required? What qualities are required of the automobile? The modern automobile must be rapid in acceleration, must have smooth acting clutch, silent gearbox, dependable brakes and steering system, as well as pleasant appearance. Also it must be comfortable and have all conveniences.