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Passage Two
Many objects in daily use have clearly been influenced by science. However, their form and function, their dimensions and appearance, were determined by technologists, designers, inventors, and engineers using nonscientific modes of thought. Many features and qualities of the objects that a technologist thinks about cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in the mind by a visual, nonverbal process, pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry or thermos-dynamics (热动力学), because they were first the picture in the minds of those.
The creative shaping process of a technologist's mind can be seen in nearly every artifact that exists. For example, in designing a diesel engine, a technologist might express individual ways of nonverbal thinking on the machine by continually using an intuitive sense of rightness and fitness. What would be the shape of the combustion chamber? Where should the valves be placed? Would it have a long or short piston? Such questions have a range of answers that are supplied by experience, by physical requirement, by limitations of available space, and not in the least by a sense of form. Some decisions, such as wall thickness and pin diameter, may depend on scientific calculations, but the nonscientific component design remains primary.
Design courses, then should be an essential element of engineering curricula. Nonverbal thinking, a central mechanism in engineering design, involves perceptions, which is the special technique of the artists, not the scientist. Because perceptive processes are not assumed to need "hard thinking", nonverbal thought is sometimes seen as a primitive stage in the development of cognitive processes and inferior to verbal mathematical thought.
If courses in design, which in a strongly analytical engineering curriculum provide the background required for practical problem-solving, are not provided, we can expect to encounter silly but costly errors occurring in advanced engineering systems. For example, early modes of high-speed railroad cars loaded with sophisticated controls were unable to operate in a snowstorm because the fan sucked snow into the electrical system. Absurd random failures that plague automatic control systems are a reflection of the chaos that results when design is assumed to be primarily a problem in mathematics.
57. In the passage, what is the writer primarily concerned with?
A) Identifying the kinds of thinking that are used by technologists.
B) Stressing the importance of scientific thinking in engineering design.
C) Proposing a new role for nonscientific thinking in engineering.
D) Contrasting the goals of engineers with those of technologists.
58. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as an example of nonverbal thinking in Paragraphs 1 and 2?
A) Building cathedrals. B) Creating rockets.
C) Designing diesel engines. D) Making automobiles.
59. It can be inferred that the writer thinks engineering curricula are ______.
A) strengthened when they include courses in design
B) weakened by the courses designed to develop mathematical skills
C) weak because they include some non-scientific components
D) strong despite the absence of nonscientific modes of thinking
60. Why is the example of diesel engine used in the passage?
A) To challenge the argument that errors in engineering design are unavoidable.
B) To support the idea that engineering design involves more than a sense of form.
C) To criticize the view that mathematics is a necessary part of the study of design.
D) To questions the idea that design courses form a part of engineering curricula.
61. What contributes to random failures in automatic control systems?
A) Using too many inexperienced engineers in the field.
B) Relying too heavily on the role of mathematics in design.
C) Attaching too much importance to nonverbal thinking in Engineering.
D) Depending very little on verbal mathematical thought.
adj. 不可避免的
