2010年12月六级写作快速提高精讲（36）

名师讲座

★ 名师团在线指导12月四六级听力备考：付思遥

★ 名师团在线指导12月四六级词汇备考：刘一男

★ 名师团在线指导12月四六级全项备考：赵建昆

冲刺备考

★ 四级考试最后冲刺备考：做练习 记单词

★ 2010年12月六级考试作文话题预测

★ 2010年12月四级考试复习资料大全：听力

★ 英语六级考试阅读备考：新东方课堂讲义

★ 2010年12月四级考试完形填空模拟练习

2011四六级VIP全程班：早准备 早通关

18．

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a summary of the following passage. You should write about 150 words and remember to write clearly on the COMPOSITION SHEET.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

The leaning tower has never been straight. Not long after work began in 1173, the foundation settled unevenly, and the tower started inclining toward the north. Evidence for this initial incline can be seen in the design of the tower itself: to keep the first few stories level, worker, make the columns and arched of the third story on the sinking northern side just slightly taller than the features on the southern side. Political unrest in Pisa halted construction in 1178, in the middle of work on the fourth level. Work resumed almost 100 years later, in 1272, and by that time, the tower had tilted to the south — the direction it still points today. Again, designer hoped to correct the lean, this time by adjusting the height of the fifth story, making the southern side somewhat taller than the northern side. In 1278, with seven stories completed, work on the tower ceased once again because of political unrest. By 1292, the tower’s tilt was so obvious that a group of masons(石匠) were asked to investigate the problem — the first of many commissions to study the tower appointed over the past 700 years.

The eighth story and final addition, the bell chamber, was built between 1360 and 1370. Once more, architects attempted to correct for the southward lean, this time by angling the bell chamber northward. These efforts, combined with the slow time scale of construction, have so far prevented the tower from topping（倒塌） over.

Throughout the monument’s history, architects and engineers have attempted to halt the lean, but since regular monitoring began in 1911, the offset（偏移） at the top of the tower has increased at a fairly consistent rate of about 1.2 millimeters each year. Today the top of the tower is 5.227 meters off-center, visibly leaning south. Fears about the safety of the landmark became acute when a similarly constructed bell tower at the Cathedral at Pavia collapsed suddenly in 1989. Shortly thereafter, the tower at Pisa was closed to visitors.

In 1990, a special commission, composed of Italian and foreign experts in the fields of structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, history of art and restoration of monuments, was brought together by the Italian government to determine new ways to save the tower. The Tower of Pisa Project Consortium has supervised several projects that have stabilized the structure and slowed the rater of its incline.

Initial efforts focused on the exterior of the tower, but in the next few months, other, more radical techniques will be tried to halt the tower’s lean. There methods will be applied directly to the soil, modifying the tower’s footing. Large-scale filed trials are now under way at the Miracle Square, where the tower stands, but all work is being done far from the monument itself to guard against the possibility that altering the ground too close to the tower could eventually damage the building.

The ultimate goal is not to straighten the tower. Because the structure tilted in different direction during the early stages of construction, it became curved like a banana and will never stand truly upright. Instead, the experts and engineers hope to ease its top back some 10 or 20 centimeters. With luck, their efforts will keep the landmark standing into the next century, when a new generation of scientists will tackle the 800-year-old problem of the leaning tower of Pisa.

最后冲刺:名师团在线指导12月四六级备考

四级历年真题（2001-2009）

2001年1月	2001年6月	2002年1月	2002年6月	2003年1月
2003年6月	2003年9月	2004年1月	2004年6月	2005年1月
2005年6月	2005年12月	2006年6月	2006年12月	2007年6月
2007年12月	2008年6月	2008年12月	2009年6月	2009年12月

六级历年真题（2001-2009）