托福阅读模拟练习（13）

　The Statue of Liberty in New Jersey waters outside New York Harbor is sheathed in copper of average thickness 2 mm. The statue is 50 m high and some 80 metric tons of copper was required for its fabrication. It is probable that few projects before or since the Statue’s construction in 1876 – 1885 ever required as much copper. Nonetheless, no historical records have yet been found to indicate positively the source of copper. It has been widely rumored that the copper used in the building of the Statue of Liberty in New Jersey came from Visnes Copper Mines at Karmoy near Stavanger in Norway.

　　Historical records make no mention of the source of the copper used in the construction of the Statue of Liberty, although a local tradition suggests that the copper came from the French-owned Visnes Mine near Stavanger, Norway. One of the mines that provided high-purity ore to the European metals industry in the late nineteenth century was the Visnes Mine in Norway. This mine was in operation throughout much of the latter half of the nineteenth century, and local tradition has it that copper from the mine was used for the Statue of Liberty. Records show that ore from this mine, refined in France and Belgium, was a significant source of European copper in the late nineteenth century. To investigate further the origin of the statue’s copper, “Bell Laboratories” in New Jesey, USA, have analyzed the samples of copper from the Visnes Mines and from the Statue of Liberty by emission spectrograph. Bell Laboratories concluded that it is highly probable that the copper from the Visnes Mine was used for the Statue of Liberty, and that the metallurgical evidence argues strongly that the copper comes from Norway. In the autumn of 1985, copper from the statue was analyzed and it has now been confirmed that it was indeed extracted at Visnes.

　　1. What is the main topic of the passage?

　　a. Where the copper came from that built the Statue of Liberty

　　b. The source of the copper that gives the Statue of Liberty its surface

　　c. The Mystery of who supplied the copper to make the statue

　　d. The gift from Norway

　　2. The word “fabrication” in line 3 is closest to

　　a. Construction

　　b. Weight

　　c. Protection

　　d. Paint

　　3. It can be inferred from the passage that the French intended the statue

　　a. To be covered with of high pure copper

　　b. To be durable

　　c. To be made in a tight budget

　　d. Very shinny-like copper

　　4. The word “sheathed” in line 1 is closest in meaning to

　　a. Covered

　　b. Made

　　c. Constructed

　　d. Decorated

　　5. What was the author’s main point in paragraph 1?

　　a. The Statue of Liberty was a big project compared to others

　　b. The Statue of Liberty was probably not made of copper from America

　　c. The copper used required a lot of fabrication

　　d. The Statue is covered with so much copper yet we don’t know for certain where it come from