Question

Boiler rooms are often dirty and steamy，but this one is clean and cool.Fox Point is a very new 47­unit living building in South Bronx，one of the city’s poorest areas.Two­thirds of the people living there are formerly (以前) homeless people，whose rent is paid by the government.The rest are low­income 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 (环境方面) 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 for 500,000 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.(2010·四川，B)

1.What is the purpose of describing the boiler rooms 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 environment­friendly 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 low­income families.

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

Answer

1.C

2.A

3.B

4.D

【解析】

1.

解析 推理判断题。第一段指出新boiler room的优点，从而引出本文的主要话题，即环保型建筑，因而本段应是点明该建筑的工作原理，故选C项。

2.2】 A

解析 细节理解题。由第三段中的“which is rapidly paid back by lower running costs”可知，该建筑的优点是lower running costs。

3.3】 B

解析 推理判断题。由第四段可知，纽约市80%的温室气体排放是来自各种建筑物，而这其中40%是由于住房造成的。故可推断出B项“在纽约市，人们的日常生活导致了许多温室气体的排放”。

4.4】 D

解析 主旨大意题。本文主要就是介绍这种健康、环保、价格低廉的房屋。故选D项。