Question

 Boiler rooms are often dirty and steamy, but this one is el.ean and cool. Fox Point is a very new47-unit living building in South Bronx, one of the city’s poorest areas. Two-thirds of the people living there are formerly (以前) homeless people, whose rent is paid by the government. The rest are low-income families.  The boiler room has special equipment, which produces energy for electricity and heat. It reuses heat that would otherwise be lost to the air, reducing carbon emissions(碳排放)while also cutting costs.

 Fox Point is operated by Palladia, a group that specializes in providing housing and services to needy, people. Palladia received support from Enterprise Community Partners (ECP), which helps build affordable housing by providing support to housing developers.

ECP has created national standards for healthy, environmentally (環境方面) clever and affordable homes which are called, the Green Communities Standards. These standards include water keeping, energy saving and the use of environmentally friendly building materials.  Meeting the standards increases housing construction costs by 2%, which is rapidly paid back by lower running costs. Even the positioning of a window to get most daylight can help save energy.

Michael. Bloomberg, New York's mayor, plans to create 165,000 affordable housing units for500,000 New Yorkers. Almost 80% of New York City’s greenhouse-gas emissions come from buildings, and 40% of those are caused, by housing.  So he recently announced that the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation and Development (DHPD) , whose duty is to develop and keep the city’s supply of affordable housing, will require all its new projects to follow ECP’s green standards.

Similar measures have been taken by other cities such as Cleveland and Denver, but New York’s DHPD is the largest city developer of affordable housing in the country.

1. What is the purpose of describing the boiler room in the first paragraph?

A.  To explain the measures the city takes to care for poor people. 

B.  To suggest that affordable housing is possible in all areas.

C.  To show how the environment-friendly building works.

D.  To compare old and new boiler rooms.

2. What is an advantage of the buildings meeting the Green Communities Standards?

A.  Lower running costs.

B.  Costing less in construction.   

C.  Less air to be lost in hot days.

D.  Better prices for homeless people.

3. It can be learned from the text that,            

A.  New York City is seriously polluted

B.  people’s daily life causes many carbon emissions in New York City

C.  a great number of people in New York City don't have houses to live in

D.  some other cities have developed more affordable housing than New York City

4. What is the main purpose of this text?

A.  To call on people to pay more attention to housing problems.

B.  To prove that some standards are needed for affordable housing.

C.  To ask society to help homeless people and low-income families.

D.  To introduce healthy, environmentally clever-and affordable housing.

Answer 1

【小題1】C

【小題2】A

【小題3】B

【小題4】D

解析:

【語篇解讀】本篇文章為科技說明文。作者以Fox Point居住群的boiler rooms 為切入點，闡述此類房子的環保節能的優點，以及各城市特別是紐約對建造此類建筑的積極響應。

【小題1】寫作目的題。第一段最后兩句：The boiler room has special equipment, which produces energy for electricity and heat. It reuses heat that would otherwise be lost to the air, reducing carbon emissions while also cutting costs. 作者描述開水房僅是從一個側面展示整個建筑群的節能、環保。  

【小題2】細節理解題。依據文章第三段倒數第二句：Meeting the standards increases housing construction costs by 2%,which is rapidly paid by lower running costs.可得答案。句意為“達到這一標準會將建筑成本提高2%，但很快會被它的低運營成本補回。”

【小題3】細節理解題。依據文章第四自然段第二句：Almost 80% of New York City’s green house-gas emissions come from buildings, and 40% of those are caused by housing.可得答案。

【小題4】寫作目的題。本文主要讓讀者了解這類健康，環保、經濟類住房。