题目内容
Bus Travel Now and Then
Nobody, except perhaps little children, considers a journey in a bus as exciting experience. Although there are thousands of cars on the roads, more people travel by bus than by car. Workers rushing to their offices or factories, children hurrying to school, housewives going shopping, use buses. For cities without other public transport services, if all the buses were to stop running for a day, work would come to a standstill in hundreds of offices and factories and most classrooms would be deserted.
Buses today are large and have comfortable seats, mostly facing the front. To get the driver to stop at a bus-stop, a passenger has merely to push a button, which rings a bell placed near the driver. The bus schedule for the city is well planned, and seldom does one have to wait very long to catch a bus. One can go from almost any part of the city to another by bus.
Of course, there are drawbacks in bus travel. Often the buses are filled to capacity, especially during the rush-hours, and then one may have to wait longer than usual at a bus-stop for a bus with space for more passengers. If one gets into a crowded bus, one may have to remain standing throughout the journey holding on to a leather strap. This can be quite uncomfortable and even a little dangerous, as one may be jerked off one's feet if the bus stops or starts suddenly.
In spite of the inconveniences, we should be grateful for the advantages of bus travel today. The situation was quite different a generation or two ago. In the early 1830's buses were much smaller than they are now. They did not run to a proper timetable (时间表). To catch a bus one stood at a bus-stop(many roads did not even have bus-stops), and took one's chance. Buses took in as many passengers as could squeeze in (挤进去). Passengers sat on benches placed on either side of the bus, facing each other.
In a big city, cars are less important than buses because
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The Barbie Dolls
In the mid 1940s, the young ambitious Duo Ruth and Elliott Handler owned a company that made wooden pictures frames (结构). It was in 1945 that Ruth and Elliot Handler jointed with their close friend Harold Mattson to form. a company that would be known for the most famous and successful doll ever created. The company would be named Mattel, MATT for Mattson, and EL for Elliot.
In the mid 1950s, while visiting Switzerland, Ruth Handler purchased a German Lilli doll. Lilli was a sharply, pretty fashion doll first made in 1955. She was originally fashioned after a famous cartoon character in the West German Newsletter, Build.
Lilli is the doll that would inspire Ruth Handler to design the Barbie doll. With the help of her technicians and engineers at Mattel, Barbie was born. Ruth then hired Charlotte Johnson, a fashion designer, to create Barbies wardrobe (衣柜). It was in 1958 that the patent for Barbie was obtained. This would be a fashion doll unlike any of her time. She would be long limited, sharply, beautiful, and only 11.5 inches tall. Ruth and Elliot would name their fashion doll after their own daughter, Bardie.
In 1959, the Barbie doll would make her way to the New York show and receive a cool reception from the toy buyers.
Barbie has undergone a lot of changes over the years and has managed to keep up with current trends in hairstyles, madeup (化妆) and clothing. She is a reflection of the history of fashion since her introduction to the toy market.
Barbie has a universal appeal and collectors both young and old enjoy time spent and memories made with their dolls.
When Ruth and Eliiot Handler was young, they had a strong desire to be highly successful.
The Barbie doll has undergone many changes over the years.
Since the birth of the Barbie doll it has served as a sign to show the tendency of the fashion.
One-room Schools
One-room schools are part of the heritage of the United States, and the mention of them makes people feel a vague longing for "the way things were". One-room schools are an endangered species (濒于灭绝的物种), however. For more than a hundred years, one-room schools have been systematically (系统地) shut down (关闭) and their students away to centralized schools. As recently as 1930 there were 149, 000 one-room schools in the United States. By 1970 there were 1, 800. Today, of the nearly 800 remaining one-room schools, more than 350 are in Nebraska. The rest are scattered through a few other states that have on their road maps wide-open spaces between towns.
Now that there are hardly any left, educators are beginning to think that maybe there is something yet to be learned from one-room schools, something that served the pioneers that might serve as well today. Progressive educators have come up with progressive-sounding names like "peer-group teaching" and "multi-age grouping" for educational procedures that occur naturally in the one-room school. In a one-room school the children teach each other because the teacher is busy part of the time teaching someone else. A fourth grader can work at a fifth-grade level in math and a third-grade level in English without the stigma (耻辱) associated with being left back or the pressures of being skipped ahead. A youngster with a learning disability can find his or her own level without being separated from the other pupils In larger urban and suburban schools today, this is called "mainstreaming". A few hours in a small school that has only one classroom and it becomes clear why so many parents feel that one of the advantages of living in Nebraska is that their children have to go to a one-room school.
It is implied in the passage that many educators and parents today feel that one-room schools
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