Text 7

　　2011年考研英語備考：英語閱讀專項特訓(xùn)匯總

　　The tragic impact of modern city on the human being has killed his sense of aesthetics. The material benefits of an affluent society have diverted his attention from his city and its cultural potential to the products of science and technology: washing machines, central beating, automatic cookers, television sets, computers and fitted carpets. He is, at the moment, drunk with democracy, well-to-do, and has never had it so good.

　　He is reluctant to walk. Statistical data reveal that the distance he is prepared to walk from his parking place to his shopping centre is very short. As there are no adequate offstreet parking facilities, the cities are littered with kerb�瞤arked cars, and parking meters rear themselves everywhere. Congestion has become the predominant factor in his environment, and statistics suggest that two cars per household system may soon make matters worse.

　　In the meantime, insult is added to injury by “l(fā)and value”. The value of land results from its use: its income is derived from the service it provides. When its use is intensified, its income and its value increase. “Putting land to its highest and best use” becomes the principal economic standard in urban growth. This speculative approach and the pressure of increasing population leads to the “vertical” growth of cities with the result that people are forced to adjust themselves to congestion in order to maintain these relatively artificial land values. Paradoxically the remedy for removing congestion is to create more of it.

　　Partial decentralization, or rather pseudo-decentralization, in the form of large development units away from the traditional town centres, only shifts the disease round the anatomy of the town: if it is not combined with the remodeling of the town’s transportation system, it does not cure it. Here the engineering solutions are strongly affected by the necessity for complicated intersections, which, in turn, are frustrated by the extravagant cost of land.

　　It is within our power to build better cities and revive the civic pride of their citizens, but we shall have to stop operating on the fringe of the problem. We shall have radically to replan them to achieve a rational density of population. We shall have to provide in them what can be called minimum “psychological elbow room.” One of the ingredients of this will be proper transportation plans. These will have to be an integral part of the overall planning process which in itself is a scientific process. If we want to plan effectively, we must collect, in an organized manner, all and complete information about the city or the town. In this process, we must not forget that cities are built by people, and that their form and shape should be subject to the will of the people. Scientific methods of data collection and analysis will indicate trends, but they will not direct action. Scientific methods are only an instrument. Man will have to set the target, and, using the results obtained by science and his own engineering skill, take upon himself the final shaping of his environment. (505 words)

　　1. It can be inferred from the first paragraph that people in old times

　　[A] paid more attention to material benefits.

　　[B] had a stronger dense of beauty.

　　[C] desired more for the development of science and technology.

　　[D] enjoyed more freedom and democracy.

　　2. The highly developed technology has made man

　　[A] increasingly industrious.

　　[B] free from inconvenience.

　　[C] excessively dependent on external aids.

　　[D] able to save his physical strength.

　　3. The drastic increase of land value in the city

　　[A] is annoyingly artificial and meaningless.

　　[B] offers more opportunities to land dealers.

　　[C] is the good result of economic development.

　　[D] fortunately leads to the “vertical” growth of cities.

　　4. The author suggests that the remodeling of cities must

　　[A] give priority to the benefit of future generations.

　　[B] be focused on the will of people.

　　[C] be economically profitable to land owners.

　　[D] resort to scientific methods.

　　5. The passage is mainly concerned with

　　[A] city culture.

　　[B] land value in cities.

　　[C] decentralization.

　　[D] city congestion.

　　核心詞匯

　　kerb n. 街頭的邊石

　　kerb�瞤arked停在路邊的

　　remedy n. 補(bǔ)救，藥物，治療法，賠償

　　aesthetics n. 美學(xué)，美術(shù)理論;審美學(xué)，美的哲學(xué)

　　litter n. 廢棄物，垃圾 vt. & vi. 使雜亂，亂丟雜物