From earliest times human beings have looked to the sky and wished to fly through it like the birds.Pioneer airmen Wilbur and Orville Wright launched the modern Aviation Age(飞机时代)with their motor-powered plane in 1903, but some 140 years earlier daredevils(铤而走险的人)had begun leaving the earth by balloon(气球), in a different way of flying that still continues today.
The first manned balloon took to the sky in France in 1783 after its inventors had safely tested their device(装置)with a sheep, a rooster and a duck as passengers.Though that hot-air-filled balloon remained high up in the air for only 20 minutes and traveled only five miles, within two years balloonists had travelled across the 30-mile-wide English Channel.In 1793 the first balloon went up in America, a hydrogen-filled device whose take-off was observed by George Washington himself.
Once airplanes had replaced balloons as the most important means of air transportation, balloonists concentrated on setting height, distance and duration(持续)records.In the 1970s and 1980s several transoceanic(横越海洋的)records were set and broken.These achievements were made possible because of new techniques for keeping balloons-now generally helium-filled-at steady temperatures.
But flying around the globe remained the final, most difficult target until March 1999.After a 19-day flight, Bertrand Piecard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of England landed in Egypt, having flown 29, 056 miles to circle the globe.At times they flew at more than 36, 000 feet and over 114 miles per hour.
(1)
What's the main idea of the passage?
[ ]
A.
People began flying in balloon in 1783.
B.
Human beings have always had the desire to fly.
C.
Once a method for transportation, ballooning is now mainly a sport.
D.
New technique made it possible for balloons to go higher and farther.
(2)
The purpose of this passage is mainly to provide ________.
[ ]
A.
a comparison between airplanes and balloons
B.
information about the life of earlier daredevils
C.
a short history of ballooning
D.
a list of ballooning records
(3)
The first manned balloon flight was ________.
[ ]
A.
in America
B.
over a field in France
C.
over the English Channel
D.
across the Atlantic
(4)
This passage suggests that flying in a balloon has always required(需要) ________.