西南交通大学考博英语应试策略.docxVIP

一、阅读 Passage 1（1995年托福 各类考试模拟题） Mass transportation公共交通运输 revised the social and economic fabric of the American city in three fundamental ways. It catalyzed 催化physical expansion, it sorted out整理了；挑选出；分类 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公共汽车, 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远离 移除 the old city center and still commute there for work, shopping, and entertainment. The new accessibility of land around the periphery外围 边缘 of almost every major city sparked点燃，发动 an explosion激增 of real estate development房地产开发 and fueled激起：燃起 what we now know as urban sprawl城市扩张. Between 1890 and 1920, for example, some 250,000 new residential lots住宅区 were recorded within the borders of Chicago, most of them located in outlying areas偏远地区. 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. 公共交通运输 催化 整理了；挑选出；分类 公共汽车 远离 移除 外围 边缘 点燃，发动 激增 房地产开发 激起：燃起 城市扩张 住宅区 偏远地区 Of course, many were never occupied; there was always a huge surplus剩余的 过剩的 of subdivided,细分 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很少关注 to coordinated land us