n. 果酱, 拥塞之物, 堵塞, 困境 vt. 挤进, 使塞满, 混杂, 压碎, 使堵塞 vi. 堵塞, 轧住, 拥挤
“Phantom” Traffic Jams Are Real—And Scientists Know How to Stop Them A) Traffic jams are a common problem of most big cities, either in developed or in developing countries, but one kind of traffic jams in particular can be especially frustrating.
四级 · CET-4 2025年6月 第3套
These are generally known as “phantom” traffic jams, in which dense traffic crawls to a halt for no apparent reason at all.
四级 · CET-4 2025年6月 第3套
and there isn’t anything there.” C) The exact cause of these phantom traffic jams has long remained a mystery.
四级 · CET-4 2025年6月 第3套
A phantom jam begins when a car in dense traffic slows down even slightly, which causes the car behind that vehicle to slow even more — and the slowing action spreads backward through the lane of traffic like a wave, getting worse the farther it spreads, Eventually, the cars far behind are forced to stop completely or risk hitting the slower vehicles ahead — and so the traffic grinds to a halt over nothing, Horn said.
四级 · CET-4 2025年6月 第3套
E) Horn has been working on the problem of phantom traffic jams for years, and he has come up with a solution: By splitting the difference between the cars in front and the cars behind, the spacing of cars in a stream of traffic can act as a damper (抑制) on phantom traffic jams.
四级 · CET-4 2025年6月 第3套