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6月英語四級閱讀理解專項(xiàng)訓(xùn)練:公共交通改變城市
Mass transportation revised the social and economic fabric of the American city in three fundamental ways. It catalyzed physical expansion, itsorted out people and land uses, and it accelerated the inherent instability of urban life. By opening vast areas of unoccupied land for residential expansion, the omnibuses, horse railways, commuter trains, and electric trolleys pulled settled regions outward two to four times more distant form city centers than they were in the premodern era. In 1850, for example, the borders of Boston lay scarcely two miles from the old business district; by the turn of the century the radius extended ten miles. Now those who could afford it could live far removed from the old city center and still commute there for work, shopping, and entertainment. The new accessibility of land around theperiphery of almost every major city sparked an explosion of real estate development and fueled what we now know as urban sprawl. Between 1890 and 1920, for example, some 250,000 new residential lots were recorded within the borders of Chicago, most of them located in outlying areas. Over the same period, another 550,000 were plotted outside the city limits but within the metropolitan area. Anxious to take advantage of the possibilities of commuting, real estate developers added 800,000 potential building sites to the Chicago region in just thirty years – lots that could have housed five to six million people.
Of course, many were never occupied; there was always a huge surplus of subdivided, but vacant, land around Chicago and other cities. These excesses underscore a feature of residential expansion related to the growth of mass transportation: urban sprawl was essentially unplanned. It was carried out by thousands of small investors who paid little heed to coordinated land use or to future land users. Those who purchased and prepared land for residential purposes, particularly land near or outside city borders where transit lines and middle-class inhabitants were anticipated, did so to create demand as much as to respond to it. Chicago is a prime example of this process. Real estate subdivision there proceeded much faster than population growth.
1. With which of the following subjects is the passage mainly concerned?
[A] Types of mass transportation.
[B] Instability of urban life.
[C] How supply and demand determine land use.
[D] The effect of mass transportation on urban expansion.
2. Why does the author mention both Boston and Chicago?
[A] To demonstrate positive and negative effects of growth.
[B] To exemplify cities with and without mass transportation.
[C] To show mass transportation changed many cities.
[D] To contrast their rate of growth.
3. According to the passage, what was one disadvantage of residential expansion?
[A] It was expensive.
[B] It happened too slowly.
[C] It was unplanned.
[D] It created a demand for public transportation.
4. The author mentions Chicago in the second paragraph as an example of a city,[A] that is large.
[B] that is used as a model for land development.
[C] where the development of land exceeded population growth.
[D] with an excellent mass transportation system.
【答案詳解】
1. D公共交通運(yùn)輸對城市擴(kuò)展的影響。文章開門見山提出這一點(diǎn)“公共交通運(yùn)輸從三個(gè)根本方面改變了美國城市的社會和經(jīng)濟(jì)結(jié)構(gòu)�！焙竺嫖恼聝�(nèi)容就是三方面的具體化。
A.公共交通運(yùn)輸類型。 B.城市生活的不穩(wěn)定性。 C.供需如何決定土地利用。這三項(xiàng)文中作為具體問題提到，并不是文章涉及的主要題目。
2. C說明公共交通改變了許多城市。答案箭第一段第四句“舉例說，1850年，波士頓市界離老的商業(yè)地區(qū)幾乎不到2英里，到了這世紀(jì)末，其半徑擴(kuò)至10英里�，F(xiàn)在供得起的人們可以住得很遠(yuǎn)，遠(yuǎn)離老的城市中心，仍然來回去那里上班、購物和娛樂”。第七句，“舉例說，在1890至1920年期間，據(jù)記載，芝加哥市界內(nèi)有約250，000個(gè)新的住宅樓區(qū)大多數(shù)設(shè)在郊區(qū)。經(jīng)過同樣這段時(shí)期，市區(qū)外，但仍在芝加哥大都市地區(qū)內(nèi)，又計(jì)劃建造了550，000個(gè)住宅樓區(qū)�！�
A.表示成長的正反兩方面效果。B.舉有無公共交通運(yùn)輸?shù)某鞘袨槔?D.對比兩者成長率;都不是本文中舉兩城市例子的目的。
3. C沒有計(jì)劃。見第二段第三句起“城市擴(kuò)展蔓延根本無計(jì)劃，好幾千個(gè)小的投資商進(jìn)行擴(kuò)展，毫不考慮相互協(xié)調(diào)配合利用土地，也不考慮未來土地利用�！�
A.太貴和B.太慢，兩個(gè)選項(xiàng)，文內(nèi)沒有提。D.它創(chuàng)造了對公共交通運(yùn)輸?shù)男枨蟆＿@不是住宅擴(kuò)展的一個(gè)缺點(diǎn)，而是三個(gè)根本改變城市的一個(gè)方面。見第一段第三句：“通過大量開發(fā)未占土地?cái)U(kuò)建住宅，公共汽車、馬車、鐵路、來回火車，有軌電車把已有人定居的居住區(qū)向外擴(kuò)展了三四倍，比他們先現(xiàn)代時(shí)期的市中心更遠(yuǎn)。”
4. C(第二段中以芝加哥城市例子說明)土地開發(fā)超過人口增長速度。答案詳見第二段“這些購買和置備土地建設(shè)住宅，特別是購置臨近城市或就在市界外的土地，搶在交通線路和中產(chǎn)階層的居民進(jìn)去之前。他們這樣做的目的是創(chuàng)造一種需求，也是響應(yīng)這種需求。芝加哥就是這種過程的典型例子。那里的房地產(chǎn)小塊土地比人口增長快得很多很多�！�
【參考譯文】
大眾交通從三個(gè)基本方面改變了美國城市的社會和經(jīng)濟(jì)結(jié)構(gòu)。它促進(jìn)了物質(zhì)的擴(kuò)張，它整理了人和土地的用途，它加速了城市生活固有的不穩(wěn)定性。公共汽車、馬鐵、通勤火車和電動手推車開辟了大片未被占用的土地用于住宅擴(kuò)建，將定居地區(qū)從城市中心向外拉出的距離是現(xiàn)代以前的兩到四倍。例如，1850年，波士頓的邊界離老商業(yè)區(qū)只有不到兩英里;到世紀(jì)之交，半徑擴(kuò)大了十英里�，F(xiàn)在，那些買得起它的人可以住在遠(yuǎn)離老城區(qū)的地方，仍然可以通勤去那里上班、購物和娛樂。在幾乎所有主要城市的周邊，新的土地可達(dá)性引發(fā)了房地產(chǎn)開發(fā)的爆炸式增長，并助長了我們現(xiàn)在所說的城市擴(kuò)張。例如，在1890年到1920年之間，芝加哥邊界內(nèi)記錄了大約25萬處新的住宅用地，其中大部分位于邊遠(yuǎn)地區(qū)。在同一時(shí)期，另有55萬人被規(guī)劃在城市范圍之外，但在大都市區(qū)內(nèi)。由于急于利用通勤的便利，房地產(chǎn)開發(fā)商在短短30年內(nèi)為芝加哥地區(qū)增加了80萬個(gè)潛在的建筑工地，這些工地原本可以容納500萬至600萬人。
當(dāng)然，許多人從來沒有被占用過;在芝加哥和其他城市周圍，總是有大量剩余的細(xì)分但空置的土地。這些過度行為凸顯了與大眾交通增長相關(guān)的住宅擴(kuò)張的一個(gè)特征:城市擴(kuò)張基本上是計(jì)劃外的。這是由成千上萬的小投資者進(jìn)行的，他們很少注意協(xié)調(diào)土地使用或未來的土地使用者。那些購買和準(zhǔn)備用于居住目的的土地的人，特別是在城市邊界附近或以外的地方，預(yù)計(jì)會有過境線和中產(chǎn)階級居民，這樣做既是為了創(chuàng)造需求，也是為了作出反應(yīng)。芝加哥就是這一過程的一個(gè)典型例子。那里的房地產(chǎn)細(xì)分比人口增長快得多。
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