Mass transportation revised the social andeconomic fabric of the American city in threefundamental ways. It catalyzed physicalexpansion, it sorted out people and land uses, andit accelerated the inherent instability of urban life. By opening vast areas of unoccupied land forresidential expansion, the omnibuses, horserailways, commuter trains, and electric trolleys pulled settled regions outward two to fourtimes more distant form city centers than they were in the premodern era. In 1850, forexample, the borders of Boston lay scarcely two miles from the old business district; by theturn of the century the radius extended ten miles. Now those who could afford it could live farremoved from the old city center and still commute there for work, shopping, andentertainment. The new accessibility of land around the periphery of almost every major citysparked an explosion of real estate development and fueled what we now know as urbansprawl. Between 1890 and 1920, for example, some 250,000 new residential lots were recordedwithin 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. Anxiousto 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 housedfive 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 ofresidential expansion related to the growth of mass transportation: urban sprawl wasessentially unplanned. It was carried out by thousands of small investors who paid littleheed to coordinated land use or to future land users. Those who purchased and prepared landfor residential purposes, particularly land near or outside city borders where transit lines andmiddle-class inhabitants were anticipated, did so to create demand as much as to respond toit. Chicago is a prime example of this process. Real estate subdivision there proceeded muchfaster 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.
Vocabulary
1. revise 改變
2. fabric 結(jié)構(gòu)
3. catalyze 催化，加速
4. sort out 把……分門別類，揀選
5. omnibus 公共汽車/馬車
6. trolley (美)有軌電車，(英)無(wú)軌電車
7. periphery 周圍，邊緣
8. sprawl 建筑物無(wú)計(jì)劃延伸，蔓延，四面八方散開
9. lot 小片土地
10. underscore 強(qiáng)調(diào)，在下面劃?rùn)M線
11. transit lines 運(yùn)輸線路
12. subdivision (出售的)小塊土地，再劃分小區(qū)
寫作方法與文章大意
文章論述了“公共交通從三方面改變了城市的社會(huì)和經(jīng)濟(jì)結(jié)構(gòu)。”采用分類寫法。文章一開始就提出三方面：第一，促進(jìn)城市實(shí)質(zhì)性的擴(kuò)展;第二，把人和土地分民別類加以利用;第三，加速了城市生活的不穩(wěn)定性。然后就是三方面的具體內(nèi)容。
答案詳解
1. D 公共交通運(yùn)輸對(duì)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(guó)城市的社會(huì)和經(jīng)濟(jì)結(jié)構(gòu)。”后面文章內(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(wèn)題提到，并不是文章涉及的主要題目。
2. C 說(shuō)明公共交通改變了許多城市。答案箭第一段第四句“舉例說(shuō)，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。現(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(lái)回去那里上班、購(gòu)物和娛樂(lè)”。第七句，“舉例說(shuō)，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(guò)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(zhǎng)的正反兩方面效果。B. 舉有無(wú)公共交通運(yùn)輸?shù)某鞘袨槔?D. 對(duì)比兩者成長(zhǎng)率;都不是本文中舉兩城市例子的目的。
3. C 沒(méi)有計(jì)劃。見第二段第三句起“城市擴(kuò)展蔓延根本無(wú)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(lái)土地利用。”
A. 太貴 和 B.太慢，兩個(gè)選項(xiàng)，文內(nèi)沒(méi)有提。D. 它創(chuàng)造了對(duì)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(guò)大量開發(fā)未占土地?cái)U(kuò)建住宅，公共汽車、馬車、鐵路、來(lái)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(shuō)明)土地開發(fā)超過(guò)人口增長(zhǎng)速度。答案詳見第二段“這些購(gòu)買和置備土地建設(shè)住宅，特別是購(gòu)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(guò)程的典型例子。那里的房地產(chǎn)小塊土地比人口增長(zhǎng)快得很多很多。”
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