2014職稱英語(yǔ)考試綜合類概括大意練習(xí)6

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　　Pedestrians Only?

　　1 The concept of traffic-free shopping areas goes back a long time. During the Middle Ages, traffic-free shopping areas were built in Middle Eastern countries to allow people to shop in comfort and, more importantly, safety. As far back as 2,000 years ago, road traffic was banned from central Rome during the day to allow for the free movement of pedestrians (行人) and was only allowed in at night when shops and markets had closed for the day. In most other cities, however, pedestrians were forced to share the streets with horses, coaches and, later, with cars and other motorised vehicles.

　　2 The modern, traffic-free shopping street was born in Europe in the 1960s, when both city populations and car ownership increased rapidly. Dirty gases from cars and the risks involved in crossing the road were beginning to make shopping an unpleasant and dangerous experience. Many believed the time was right for experimenting with car-free streets, and shopping areas seemed the best place to start.

　　3 At first, there was resistance from shopkeepers. They believed that such a move would be bad for business. They argued that people would avoid streets if they were unable to get to them in their cars. When the first streets in Europe were closed to traffic, there were even noisy demonstrations, as many shopkeepers predicted they would lose customers.

　　4 However, research carried out afterwards in several European cities revealed some unexpected statistics. In Munich, Cologne and Hamburg, visitors to shopping areas increased by 50 percent. On Copenhagen's main shopping street, shopkeepers reported sales increases of 25-40 percent. Shopkeepers in Minneapolis, the USA. were so impressed when they learnt this that they even offered to pay for the construction and maintenance costs of their own traffic-free streets.

　　5 With the arrival of the traffic-free shopping street, many shops, especially those selling things like clothes, food and smaller luxury items, prospered. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good news for everyone, as shops selling furniture and larger electrical appliances (電器) actually saw their sates drop. Many of these were forced to move elsewhere, away from the city centre.

　　練習(xí)：

　　23. Paragraph 1________

　　24. Paragraph 2________

　　25. Paragraph 3________

　　26. Paragraph 4________

　　A Facing protests from shop owners

　　B Increase in sales and customers

　　C An idea from ancient history

　　D A need for change

　　E An experiment that went wrong

　　F Popularity of online shopping

　　27. Traffic-free shopping streets first developed in________.

　　28. In the 1960s, dirty gases from cars made shopping________.

　　29. Shopkeepers mistakenly believed the car-free streets would keep away________.

　　30. The arrival of the traffic-free shopping street made many ________ lose their business.

　　A customers

　　B pedestrians

　　C furniture sellers

　　D Middle Eastern countries

　　E a bad experience

　　F North America

　　答案：

　　23 C 第一段介紹了古代步行街的概念。

　　24 D 第二段介紹了車輛增多后對(duì)行人造成的不便，人們認(rèn)為需要改變這一現(xiàn)象。

　　25 A 步行街剛開(kāi)始出現(xiàn)的時(shí)候遭到許多店主的抵制。

　　26 B 步行街出現(xiàn)后，商店的生意不但沒(méi)有下降，反而有了很大的長(zhǎng)進(jìn)。

　　27 D 第一段講到，步行街首先出現(xiàn)在中東國(guó)家。

　　28 E 第二段講到，汽車尾氣和道路安全問(wèn)題使得購(gòu)物變成一項(xiàng)不愉快并且危險(xiǎn)的行為。

　　29 A 從第三段中可以看出，店主害怕步行街的建立會(huì)使顧客減少。

　　30 C 最后一段講到步行街的建立使得一些商店生意變好，同時(shí)，也使家具商店和大型器商店的生意受到不利影響。