6月英語四級閱讀理解專項訓練: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公共交通運輸對城市擴展的影響。文章開門見山提出這一點“公共交通運輸從三個根本方面改變了美國城市的社會和經濟結構。”后面文章內容就是三方面的具體化。

　　A.公共交通運輸類型。 B.城市生活的不穩定性。 C.供需如何決定土地利用。這三項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地區幾乎不到2英里，到了這世紀末，其半徑擴至10英里。現在供得起的人們可以住得很遠，遠離老的城市中心，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，據記載，芝加哥市界內有約250，000個新的住宅樓區大多數設在郊區。經過同樣這段時期，市區外，但仍在芝加哥大都市地區內，又計劃建造了550，000個住宅樓區。”

　　A.表示成長的正反兩方面效果。B.舉有無公共交通運輸的城市為例。 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沒有計劃。見第二段第三句起“城市擴展蔓延根本無計劃，好幾千個小的投資商進行擴展，毫不考慮相互協調配合利用土地，也不考慮未來土地利用。”

　　A.太貴和B.太慢，兩個選項，文內沒有提。D.它創造了對公共交通運輸的需求。這不是住宅擴展的一個缺點，而是三個根本改變城市的一個方面。見第一段第三句：“通過大量開發未占土地擴建住宅，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向外擴展了三四倍，比他們先現代時期的市中心更遠。”

　　4. C(第二段中以芝加哥城市例子說明)土地開發超過人口增長速度。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階層的居民進去之前。他們這樣做的目的是創造一種需求，也是響應這種需求。芝加哥就是這種過程的典型例子。那里的房地產小塊土地比人口增長快得很多很多。”

　　【參考譯文】

　　大眾交通從三個基本方面改變了美國城市的社會和經濟結構。它促進了物質的擴張，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建，將定居地區從城市中心向外拉出的距離是現代以前的兩到四倍。例如，1850年，波士頓的邊界離老商業區只有不到兩英里;到世紀之交，半徑擴大了十英里。現在，那些買得起它的人可以住在遠離老城區的地方，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，新的土地可達性引發了房地產開發的爆炸式增長，并助長了我們現在所說的城市擴張。例如，在1890年到1920年之間，芝加哥邊界內記錄了大約25萬處新的住宅用地，其中大部分位于邊遠地區。在同一時期，另有55萬人被規劃在城市范圍之外，但在大都市區內。由于急于利用通勤的便利，房地產開發商在短短30年內為芝加哥地區增加了80萬個潛在的建筑工地，這些工地原本可以容納500萬至600萬人。

　　當然，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的住宅擴張的一個特征:城市擴張基本上是計劃外的。這是由成千上萬的小投資者進行的，他們很少注意協調土地使用或未來的土地使用者。那些購買和準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，預計會有過境線和中產階級居民，這樣做既是為了創造需求，也是為了作出反應。芝加哥就是這一過程的一個典型例子。那里的房地產細分比人口增長快得多。

【6月英語四級閱讀理解專項訓練:公共交通改變城市】相關文章：

6月英語四級閱讀理解專項訓練:現代公關10-06

6月英語四級閱讀理解專項模擬10-07

英語四級閱讀理解07-01

四級閱讀理解訓練題及解析201706-28

12月英語四級考試閱讀理解訓練：營銷觀念12-10

大學英語四級閱讀理解09-14

（優選）大學英語四級閱讀理解10-21

英語四級閱讀理解常考詞匯01-02

英語四級閱讀理解10篇（精）10-16