Years ago our cities were full of cars, buses and trucks. Now the streets are completely congested (拥挤的) and it is very difficult to drive a car along them. Drivers must stop at hundreds of traffic li

第1题

A few years ago, our group at Saclay, in collaboration with a number of other European

A.along with

B.in the light of

C.in

D.regardless of

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第2题

Passage OneThe Urbanization — migration away from the suburbs to the city center — will be

Passage One

The Urbanization — migration away from the suburbs to the city center — will be the biggest real estate trend in 2015, according to a new report.

The report says America’s urbanization will continue to be the most significant issue affecting the industry, as cities across the country imitate the walkability and transit-oriented development making cities like New York and San Francisco so successful.

As smaller cities copy the model of these “24-hour cities，”tfiore affordable versions of these places will be created. The report refers to this as the coming of the “18-hour city，”，and uses the term to refer to cities like Houston, Austin, Charlotte, and Nashville, which are “positioning themselves as highly competitive, in terms of livability, employment offerings, and recreational and cultural facilities.”

Another trend that looks significant in 2015 is that America’s largest population group, Millennials (千禧一代)，will continue to put off buying a house. Apartments will retain their appeal for a while for Millennials, haunted by what happened to home-owning parents.

This trend will continue into the 2020s, the report projects. After that, survey respondents disagree over whether this generation will follow in their parents，footsteps, moving to the suburbs to raise families, or will choose to remain in the city center.

Another issue affecting real estate in the coming year will be America’s failing infrastructure. Most roads, bridges, transit, water systems, the electric grid, and communications networks were installed 50 to 100 years ago, and they are largely taken for granted until they fail.

The report’s writers state that America’s failure to invest in infrastructure impacts not only the health of the real-estate market, but also our ability to remain globally competitive.

Apart from the specific trends highlighted above, which cause some investors to worry, the report portrays an overall optimism borne by the recent healthy real-estate “upcycle” and improving economy. Seventy-four percent of the respondents surveyed report a “good to excellent” expectation of real-estate profitability in 2015. While excessive optimism can promote bad investment patterns, resulting in a real- estate “bubble,” the report’s writers downplay that potential outcome in that it has not yet occurred.

According to the new report, real estate development in 2015 will witness_______ .

A.an accelerating speed

B.a shift to city centers

C.a new focus on small cities

D.an ever-increasing demand

Why are Millennials reluctant to buy a house？A.They can only afford small apartments

B.The house prices are currently too high

C.Their parents' bad experience still haunts them

D.They feel attached to the suburban environment

What characterizes “24-hour cities” like New York？A.People can live without private cars

B.People are generally more competitive

C.People can enjoy services around the clock

D.People are in harmony with the environment

What might hinder real estate development in the U.S.？A.The continuing economic recession in the country

B.The lack of confidence on the part of investors

C.The fierce global competition

D.The worsening infrastructure

How do most of the respondents in the survey feel about the U.S. real-estate market in 2015？A.Pessimistic

B.Hopeful

C.Cautious

D.Uncertain

请帮忙给出每个问题的正确答案和分析，谢谢！

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第3题

From the beginning rivers have played an important part in the life of man. Man of the ear

liest times used the rivers as a means of travel. Today rivers still serve as a great waterway for the transport and people.

In ancient times, man settled near rivers or on fiver banks and built up large empires.

Water is Nature’s most precious gift to man. Man needs water to irrigate his crops, to cook and to wash. In nations all over the world rivers mean life and wealth. They feed and clothe the nations around them.

Water is also a source of energy and power. Man constructs huge dams across the river to control the water for irrigation and get the energy needed to drive generators. The electrical power is then directed to homes, cities, factories and television stations.

Man uses water each day. His main source of water comes from reservoirs, which in turn get their water from the rivers.

Rivers also bring down soil and minerals from the mountains and deposit them on the plains building up rich fiver deltas for raising plants and crops. Fresh water life in rivers or in lakes fed by them provide man with food.

In a small way rivers help to keep man in good health and provide for his amusements. Various forms of water sports keep man strong and healthy.

Rivers have run on this earth long before man. Man’s future ability to live is uncertain, but rivers will flow on forever.

Rivers have been important to man ______.

A．since the last century

B．for a very long time

C．since a few hundred years ago

D．since a few years ago

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第4题

From the beginning rivers have played an important part in the life of man. Man of the ear

liest times used the rivers as a means of travel. Today rivers still serve as a great waterway for the transport and people.

In ancient times, man settled near rivers or on river banks and built up large empires.

Water is Nature's most precious gift to man. Man needs water to irrigate his crops, to cook and to wash. In nations all over the world rivers mean life and wealth. They feed and clothe the nations around them.

Water is also a source of energy and power. Man constructs huge dams across the river to control the water for irrigation and get the energy needed to drive generators. The electrical power is then directed to homes, cities, factories and television stations.

Man uses water each day. His main source of water comes from reservoirs, which in turn get their water from the rivers.

Rivers also bring down soil and minerals from the mountains and deposit them on the plains building up rich river deltas for raising plants and crops. Fresh water life in rivers or in lakes fed by them provide man with food.

In a small way rivers help to keep man in good health and provide for his amusements. Various forms of water sports keep man strong and healthy.

Rivers have run on this earth long before man. Man's future ability to live is uncertain, but rivers will flow on forever.

Rivers have been important to man ______.

A．since the last century

B．for a very long time

C．since a few hundred years ago

D．since a few years ago

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第5题

What is happiness？ We Americans believe that the right to 【C1】______ happiness is issued t

o us with the birth 【C2】______ , but no one seems quite sure 【C3】______ way it ran.

【C4】______ , we Americans seem to be 【C5】______ to the idea of buying our way to happiness. We shall all have 【C6】______ it to Heaven when we 【C7】______ enough.

And at the same time the 【C8】______ of American commercialism are hugely dedicated to making us deliberately 【C9】______ .

Advertising is one of our major 【C10】______ , and advertising exists not to 【C11】______ desires but to create them--and to create them faster than any man's 【C12】______ can satisfy them. We are taught that to 【C13】______ is to be happy, and then we are 【C14】______ to want. We are even told it is our 【C15】______ to want. It was only a few years ago, to 【C16】______ a single example, that car dealers across the country were flying banners that 【C17】______ "You Auto Buy Now". They were calling 【C18】______ Americans, as an act approaching patriotism, to buy at once, 【C19】______ money they did not have, automobiles they did not really need, and which they would be required to grow tired of by the time the next year's 【C20】______ were released.

【C1】

A．pursue

B．persist

C．preserve

D．prevail

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第6题

The town of Brighttown in Euraria has a mayor （elected every five years by the people in t

The town of Brighttown in Euraria has a mayor (elected every five years by the people in the town) who is responsible for, amongst other things, the transport policy of the town.

A year ago, the mayor (acting as project sponsor) instigated a ‘traffic lite’ project to reduce traffic congestion at traffic lights in the town. Rather than relying on fixed timings, he suggested that a system should be implemented which made the traffic lights sensitive to traffic flow. So, if a queue built up, then the lights would automatically change to green (go). The mayor suggested that this would have a number of benefits. Firstly, it would reduce harmful emissions at the areas near traffic lights and, secondly, it would improve the journey times for all vehicles, leading to drivers ‘being less stressed’. He also cited evidence from cities overseas where predictable journey times had been attractive to flexible companies who could set themselves up anywhere in the country. He felt that the new system would attract such companies to the town.

The Eurarian government has a transport regulation agency called OfRoad. Part of OfRoad’s responsibilities is to monitor transport investments and it was originally critical of the Brighttown ‘traffic lite’ project because the project’s benefits were intangible and lacked credibility. The business case did not include a quantitative cost/benefit analysis. OfRoad has itself published a benefits management process which classifies benefits in the following way.

Financial: A financial benefit can be confidently allocated in advance of the project. Thus if the investment will save $90,000 per year in staff costs then this is a financial benefit.

Quantifiable: A quantifiable benefit is a benefit where there is sufficient credible evidence to suggest, in advance, how much benefit will result from the project. This benefit may be financial or non-financial. For example, energy savings from a new building might be credibly predicted in advance. However, the exact amount of savings cannot be accurately forecast.

Measurable benefit: A measurable benefit is a benefit which can only be confidently assessed post-implementation, and so cannot be reliably predicted in advance. Increase in sales from a particular initiative is an example of a measurable benefit. Measurable benefits may either be financial or non-financial.

Observable benefit: An observable benefit is a benefit which a specific individual or group will decide, using agreed criteria, has been realised or not. Such benefits are usually non-financial. Improved staff morale might be an example of an observable benefit.

One month ago, the mayoral elections saw the election of a new mayor with a completely distinct transport policy with different objectives. She wishes to address traffic congestion by attracting commuters away from their cars and onto public transport. Part of her policy is a traffic light system which gives priority to buses. The town council owns the buses which operate in the town and they have invested heavily in buses which are comfortable and have significantly lower emissions than the conventional cars used by most people in the town. The new mayor wishes to improve the frequency, punctuality and convenience of these buses, so that they tempt people away from using their cars. This will require more buses and more bus crews, a requirement which the mayor presents as ‘being good for the unemployment rate in this town’. It will also help the bus service meet the punctuality service level which it published three years ago, but has never yet met. ‘A reduction in cars and an increase in buses will help us meet our target’, the mayor claims.

The mayor has also suggested a number of initiatives to discourage people from taking their cars into the town. She intends to sell two car parks for housing land (raising $325,000) and this will reduce car park capacity from 1,000 to 800 car spaces per day. She also intends to raise the daily parking fee from $3 to $4. Car park occupancy currently stands at 95% (it is difficult to achieve 100% for technical reasons) and the same occupancy rate is expected when the car park capacity is reduced.

The new mayor believes that her policy signals the fact that Brighttown is serious about its green credentials. ‘This’, she says, ‘will attract green consumers to come and live in our town and green companies to set up here. These companies and consumers will bring great benefit to our community.’ To emphasise this, she has set up a Go Green team to encourage green initiatives in the town.

The ‘traffic lite’ project to tackle congestion proposed by the former mayor is still in the development stage. The new mayor believes that this project can be modified to deliver her vision and still be ready on the date promised by her predecessor.

Required:

(a) A ‘terms of reference’ (project initiation document, project charter) was developed for the ‘traffic lite’ project to reduce traffic congestion.

Discuss what changes will have to be made to this ‘terms of reference’ (project initiation document, project charter) to reflect the new mayor’s vision of the project. (5 marks)

(b) The new mayor wishes to re-define the business case for the project, using the benefits categorisation suggested by OfRoad. Identify costs and benefits for the revised project, classifying each benefit using the guidance provided by OfRoad. (14 marks)

(c) Stakeholder management is the prime responsibility of the project manager.

Discuss the appropriate management of each of the following three stakeholders identified in the revised (modified) project.

(i) The new mayor;

(ii) OfRoad;

(iii) A private motorist in Brighttown who uses his vehicle to commute to his job in the town. (6 marks)

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第7题

Once upon a time （not so very long ago, either!) industrial goods were made to last foreve

Once upon a time (not so very long ago, either!) industrial goods were made to last forever. If you bought a ear or a stove, it was a once-in-a-lifetime investment(投资). You paid good money for it, and you took care of it. Nowadays industry has persuaded us that products shouldn't last a long time. It's cheaper to throw them away than it is to repair them. This has led directly to the "throw-away society" which is a tremendous waste of the earth's resources.

Just think of the cars that are traded in daily, just because they are out of style. Think of the expensive packaging material that is thrown away every time a new object is bought. And we consumers have to pay for that material! Our industrial society has turned us into spoiled children. This wastefulness has got ten us into the mess (困境) we are in now. When we have no resources left, then we'll start to take care of what we have. But why can't we act before this happens？ Why can't we go back to being a society in which the prevention of waste is a virtue？

Products used to be made to last ______.

A．for at least five years

B．for ten years

C．for as long as you take good care of them

D．for your whole life

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第8题

Fifty years ago, most people lived in rural areas. But the world has changed. In the near

future, more than half of all people will live in cities for the first time in history.

City life is not always a bad thing, but many experts worry about this process of urbanization (城市化 ). A new report says that process is having a huge effect on human health and the quality of the environment. Of the three billion people who live in cities now, the report says, about one billion live in unplanned settlements. These are areas of poverty, slums that generally lack basic services like clean water, or even permanent housing. More than 60 million people are added to cities and surrounding areas each year, mostly in slums in developing countries. The international community has been too slow to recognize the growth of urban poverty. Policy makers need to increase investments in education, health care and other areas.

The report talks about some successful efforts by local governments and community groups. For example, it says in Columbia, engineers have created a bus system that has helped reduce air pollution and improve quality of life.

The link between urban poverty and the environment is serious, but governments also need to consider why people are moving out of rural areas. Climate changes, droughts, floods—there are many reasons forcing people to leave their farm land.

The two issues of poverty reduction and the environment have existed side by side, but rarely have they connected—until now. Governments are starting to understand that environmental collapse is not a natural cost of economic development. Instead, it is hurting the possibility for growth.

The main idea of the passage is about ______.

A．urbanization and its effects

B．a huge effect of human

C．economic development

D．the environment

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第9题

Ours has become a society of employees. A hundred years or so ago only one out of every fi

ve Americans at work was employed, i. e. , worked for somebody else. Today only one out of five is not employed but working for himself. And when fifty years ago "being employed" meant working as a factory laborer or as a farmhand, the employee of today is increasingly a middle-class person with a substantial formal education, holding a professional or management job requiring intellectual and technical skills. Indeed, two things have characterized American society during these last fifty years: middle-class and upper-class employees have been tile fastestgrowing groups in our working population—growing so fast that the industrial worker, that oldest child of the Industrial Revolution, has been losing in numerical importance despite the expansion of industrial production.

Yet you will find little if anything written on what it is to be an employee. You can find a great deal of very dubious advice on how to get a job or how to get a promotion. You can also find a good deal of work in a chosen field, whether it be the mechanist's trade or book-keeping(簿记). Every one of these trades requires different skills, sets different standards, and requires a different preparation. Yet they all have employeeship in common. And increasingly, especially in the large business or in government, employeeship is more important to success than the special professional knowledge or skill. Certainly more people fail because they do not know the requirements of being an employee than because they do not adequately possess the skills of their trade; the higher you climb the ladder, the more you get into administrative or executive work, the greater the emphasis on ability to work within the organization rather than on technical abilities or professional knowledge.

It is implied that fifty years ago _______.

A．eighty per cent of American working people were employed in factories

B．twenty per cent of American intellectuals were employees

C．the percentage of intellectuals in the total work force was almost the same as that of industrial workers

D．the percentage of intellectuals working as employees was not so large as that of industrial workers

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第10题

完形填空Many of the world’s pollution problems have been caused by the crowding of lar

ge groups of people into cities.Satisfying the 21 of the people leads to further polluting by industry.If the rapid increase in human population 22 at the present rate (比率), there may be much greater harm.Some scientists speak of the 23 in number of people as “Population Pollution”.

About 2000 years ago, the world 24 was probably about 250 million.It reached a billion in 1850.By 1930 the population was two billion.It is 25 three and a half billion.It is expected to double by the year 2000.If the population continues to grow at the same 26 , there would be 25 billion people in the world a hundred years from now.

Man has been using the earth’s 27 more and more rapidly over the years.Some of them are almost gone.Now many people believe that man’s greatest 28 is how to control the growth of this population.The materials in the world will not support the human population in time to come if the present rate of increase continues.29 there is over crowding in the cities and hunger in some countries.Can man’s rate of increase continue？

Many people believe that human survival (幸存者) in the future 30 on the answer to the question.

21.A.needs

B.supplies

C.service

D.supports

22.A.stops

B.continues

C.slows down

D.adds to

23.A.increase

B.reduce

C.country

D.improvement

24.A.people

B.situation

C.population

D.land

25.A.now

B.in the past

C.in the future

D.then

26.A.place

B.time

C.rate

D.result

27.A coal

B.oil

C.mines

D.resources

28.A.problem

B.power

C.plan

D.idea

29.A.Already

B.Yet

C.Still

D.Often

30.A.feeds

B.lives

C.keeps

D.depends

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