through designs that provide a range of different uses in a confined space. A hyperfunctional planting, for example, might be designed to provide food, shade, wildlife habitat, and pollution removal all in the same garden with the right choice of plants, configurations, and management practices.
What this means is that we have to maximise the benefits and uses of urban parks, while minimising the costs of building and maintaining them. Currently, green space and street plantings are relatively similar throughout the Western world, regardless of differences in local climate, geography, and natural history. Even desert cities feature the same sizable street trees and well-watered and well-fertilized lawns that you might see in more temperate climes. The movement to reduce the resources and water requirements of such urban landscapes in these arid areas is called \mixed responses in terms of public acceptance. Scott Yabiku and colleagues at the Central Arizona Phoenix project showed that newcomers to the desert embrace xeriscaping more than long-time residents, who are more likely to prefer the well-watered aesthetic. In part, this may be because xeriscaping is justified more by reducing landscaping costs in this case water costs than by providing desired benefits like recreation, pollution mitigation, and cultural value. From this perspective, xeriscaping can seem more like a compromise than an asset.
But there are other ways to make our parks and natural spaces do more. Nan Ellin, of the Ecological Planning Center in the US, advocates an asset-based approach to urbanism. Instead of envisioning cities in terms what they can't have, ecological planners are beginning to frame the discussion of future cities in terms of what they do have - their natural and cultural assets. In Utah’s Salt Lake City, instead of couching environmental planning as an issue of resource scarcity, the future park is described as %urbanism\and the strong association of local residents with the natural environment of the mountain ranges near their home. From this starting point, the local climate, vegetation, patterns of rain and snowfall, and mountain topography are all deemed natural assets that create a new perspective when it comes to creating urban green space. In Cairns, Australia, the local master plan embraces \place through landscaping features, while also providing important functions such as shading and cooling in this tropical climate.
The globally homogenized landscape aesthetic--which sees parks from Boston to Brisbane looking worryingly similar--will diminish in importance as future urban green space will be attuned to local values and cultural perceptions of beauty. This will lead to a far greater diversity of urban landscape designs than are apparent today. Already, we are seeing new purposes for urban landscaping that are transforming the 20th century woodland park into bioswales--plantings designed to filter stormwater--green roofs, wildlife corridors, and urban food gardens. However, until recently we have been lacking the datasets and science-based specifications for designs that work to serve all of these purposes at once.
In New York City, Thomas Whitlow of Cornell University sends students through tree-lined streets with portable, backpack-mounted air quality monitors. At home in his laboratory, he places tree branches in wind tunnels to measure pollution deposition onto leaves. It turns out that currently, many street tree plantings are ineffective at removing air pollutants, and instead may trap pollutants near the ground. My students and I equipped street trees with sensors in and around the trunk in Los Angeles to monitor growth and water use in real time to help find which species provide the largest canopies for the lowest amount of water. Rather than relying on assumptions about the role of urban vegetation in improving the environment and health, future landscaping designs will be engineered based on empirical data and state of the art of simulations.
New datasets on the performance of urban landscapes are changing our view of what future urban parks will look like and what it will do. With precise measurements of pollutant uptake, water use, plant growth rates, and greenhouse gas emissions, we are better and better able to design landscapes that require less intensive management and are less costly, while providing more social and environmental uses.
26. According to the passage, which of the following serves as the BEST reason for the similarity in urban green space throughout the West? [A] Climate. [B] Geography.
[C] Functional purposes. [D] Design principles.
27. The following are all features of future urban green space EXCEPT that_______. [A] each city has its distinct style of urban green space [B] urban landscape will focus more on cultural history [C] urban green space will be designed to serve many uses [D] more green cover will be seen on city roofs and walls
28. Why are some local residents opposed to \[A] It cannot reduce water requirements. [B] It has proved to be too costly. [C] It is not suited for the local area. [D] It does not have enough advantages.
29. According to the passage, if planners adopt an asset-based approach, they will probably_______. [A] incorporate the area's natural and cultural heritage into their design [B] make careful estimation of the area's natural resources before designing [C] combine natural resources and practical functions in their design [D] envision more purposes for urban landscaping in their design
30. According to the passage, future landscaping designs will rely more on_______. [A] human assumptions [B] field work
[C] scientific estimation [D] laboratory work
Part Ⅲ GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
31. Which party is in power now in the UK? [A] The Conservative Party. [B] The Labour Party.
[C] The Liberal Democrats. [D] The Scottish National Party.
32. Which of the following lakes does Canada share with the United States? [A] Lake Winnipeg.
[B] The Great Slave Lake. [C] The Great Bear Lake. [D] The five Great Lakes.
33. U. S. senators serve for ____ years after they are elected.
[A] four [B] six [C] three [D] two
34. Who were the natives of Australia before the arrival of the British settlers? [A] The Eskimos. [B] The Maori. [C] The Indians. [D] The Aborigines.
35. ____ is best known for the technique of dramatic monologue in his poems. [A] Robert Browning [B] W. B. Yeats [C] William Blake
[D] William Wordsworth
36. Which of the following is a contemporary British poet? [A] Ted Hughes.
[B] William Wordsworth. [C] E. E. Cummings. [D] Carl Sandburg.
37. Who was the author of Moby-Dick? [A] Nathaniel Hawthorne. [B] Ralph Waldo Emerson. [C] Herman Melville. [D] Washington Irving.
38. The words \[A] semantic [B] connotative [C] conceptual [D] collocative
39. A: Do you like ice cream? B: Yes, I do. This is an example of ____. [A] reference [B] substitution [C] conjunction [D] ellipsis
40. Which of the following is a voiceless consonant? [A] [ j ] [B] [ w ] [C] [ p ]
[D] [ l ]
PART IV PRROFREADING & ERROR CORRECTION
The passage contains TEN errors．Each indicated line contains a maximum of ONE error. In each case, only ONE word is involved．You should proof-read the passage and correct it in the following way：
For a wrong word， underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line．
For a missing word． mark the position of the missing word with a \ word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line．
For an unnecessary word， cross the unnecessary word with a slash”／”and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line． EXAMPLE
When ^ art museum wants a new exhibit， (1) an it never buys things in finished form and hangs (2) never them on the wall．When a natural history museum
wants an exhibition, it must often build it． (3) exhibit
When I was in my early teens, I was taken to a spectacular show
on ice by the mother of a friend. Looked round at the luxury of the (1) rink, my friend’s mother remarked on the “plush” seats we had been
given. I did not know what she meant, and being proud of my (2) vocabulary, I tried to infer its meaning from the context. “Plush”
was clearly intended as a complimentary, a positive evaluation; that (3) much I could tell it from the tone of voice and the context. So I (4) started to use the word Yes, I replied, they certainly are plush, and so are the ice rink and the costumes of the skaters, aren’t they? My
friend’s mother was very polite to correct me, but I could tell from her (5) expression that I had not got the word auite right.
Often we can indeed infer from the context what a word roughly
Neans, and that is in fact the way which we usually acquire both (6) new words and new meanings for familiar words, specially in our (7) own first language. But sometimes we need to ask, as I should have
asked for plush, and this is particularly true in the (8) aspect of a foreign language. If you are continually surrounded by (9) speakers of the language you are learning, you can ask them directly, but often this opportunity does not exist for the learner of English.
So dictionaries have been developed to mend the gap. (10)
PART V TRANSLATION
SECTION A CHINESES TO ENGLISH
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