2013年12月大学英语四级考试阅读真题及答案

　　SectionB

　　Directions:In this section, you are going to read a passagewith ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information givenin one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information isderived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is markedwith a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter onAnswer Sheet 2.

　　The rise of the sharing economy

　　A) Last night 40 000 people rentedaccommodation from a service that offers 250 000 rooms in 30 000 cities in 192countries. They chose their rooms and paid for everything online. But theirbeds were provided by private individuals, rather than a hotel chain. Hosts andguests were matched up by Airbnb, a firm based in San Francisco. Since itslaunch in 2008 more than 4 million people have used it—2.5 million of them in2012 alone. It is the most prominent example of a huge new “sharing economy”, inwhich people rent beds, cars, boats and other assets directly from each other,co-ordinated via the internet.

　　B)You might think this is no different fromrunning a bed-and-breakfast (家庭旅店), owninga timeshare (分时度假房) or participating in a car pool. But technology has reducedtransaction costs, making sharing assets cheaper and easier than ever—andtherefore possible on a much larger scale. The big change is the availabilityof more data about people and things, which allows physical assets to bedivided and consumed as services. Before the internet, renting a surfboard, apower tool or a parking space from someone else was feasible, but was usuallymore trouble than it was worth. Now websites such as Airbnb, RelayRides andSnapGoods match up owners and renters; smartphones with GPS let people seewhere the nearest rentable car is parked; social networks provide a way tocheck up on people and build trust; and online payment systems handle thebilling.

　　What’s mineis yours, for a fee

　　C)Just as peer-to-peer businesses like eBay allow anyone to become a retailer, sharingsites let individuals act as an ad hoc (临时的) taxi service,car-hire firm or boutique hotel (精品酒店) as and when itsuits them. Just go online or download an app. The model works for items thatare expensive to buy and are widely owned by people who do not make full use ofthem. Bedrooms and cars are the most obvious examples, but you can also rentcamping spaces in Sweden, fields in Australia and washing machines in France.As advocates of the sharing economy like to put it, access trumps (胜过)ownership.

　　D)Rachel Botsman, the author of a book onthe subject, says the consumer peer-to-peerrental market alone is worth $26 billion. Broader definitions of the sharingeconomy include peer-to-peer lending or putting asolar panel on your roof and selling power back to the grid (电网). And itis not just individuals: the web makes it easier for companies to rent outspare offices and idle machines, too. But the core of the sharing economy ispeople renting things from each other.

　　E)Such “collaborative (合作的)consumption” is a good thing for several reasons. Owners make money fromunderused assets. Airbnb says hosts in San Francisco who rent out their homesdo so for an average of 58 nights a year, making $9 300. Car owners who renttheir vehicles to others using RelayRides make an average of $250 a month; somemake more than $1 000. Renters, meanwhile, pay less than they would if theybought the item themselves, or turned to a traditional provider such as a hotelor car-hire firm. And there are environmental benefits, too: renting a carwhen you need it, rather than owning one, means fewer cars are required andfewer resources must be devoted to making them.

　　F)For sociable souls, meeting new people bystaying in their homes is part of the charm. Curmudgeons (倔脾气的人) whoimagine that every renter is a murderer can still stay at conventional hotels.For others, the web fosters trust. As well as the background checks carried outby platform owners, online reviews and ratings are usually posted by bothparties to each transaction, which makes it easy to spot bad drivers, bathrobe-thieves and surfboard-wreckers. By usingFacebook and other social networks, participants can check each other out andidentify friends (or friends of friends) in common. An Airbnb user had herapartment trashed in 2011. But the remarkable thing is how well the systemusually works.

　　Peering into the future

　　G)The sharing economy is a little likeonline shopping, which started in America 15 years ago. At first, people wereworried about security. But having made a successful purchase from, say,Amazon, they felt safe buying elsewhere. Similarly, using Airbnb or a car-hire service for the first time encourages people to try otherofferings. Next, consider eBay. Having started out as a peer-to-peer marketplace, it is now dominated byprofessional “power sellers”(many of whom started out as ordinary eBay users). The same mayhappen with the sharing economy, which also provides new opportunities for enterprise.Some people have bought cars solely to rent them out, for example.

　　H)Existing rental businesses are gettinginvolved too. Avis, a car-hire firm, has a share in asharing rival. So do GM and Daimler, two carmakers. In future, companies maydevelop hybrid (混合的) models, listing excess capacity (whether vehicles, equipment oroffice space) on peer-to-peer rental sites. In thepast, new ways of doing things online have not displaced the old ways entirely.But they have often changed them. Just as internet shopping forced Wal-mart and Tesco to adapt, so online sharing will shake up transport,tourism, equipment-hire and more.

　　I)The main worry is regulatory uncertainty.Will room-renters be subject to hotel taxes, for example? InAmsterdam officials are using Airbnb listings to track down unlicensed hotels.In some American cities, peer-to-peertaxi services have been banned after lobbying by traditional taxi firms. Thedanger is that although some rules need to be updated to protect consumers fromharm, existing rental businesses will try to destroy competition. People whorent out rooms should pay tax, of course, but they should not be regulated likea Ritz-Carlton hotel. The lighter rules that typically govern bed-and-breakfasts are more than adequate.

　　J)The sharing economy is the latest exampleof the internet’s value to consumers. This emerging model is nowbig and disruptive (颠覆性的) enough for regulators and companies to have woken up to it. Thatis a sign of its immense potential. It is time to start caring about sharing.

　　注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

　　46. Sharing items such as cars does good tothe environment.

　　47. Airbnb’ssuccess clearly illustrates the emergence of a huge sharing economy.

　　48. The major concern about the sharingeconomy is how the government regulates it.

　　49. The most frequently shared items arethose expensive to buy but not fully used.

　　50. The sharing economy has a promisingfuture.

　　51. Online sharing will change the waybusiness is done in transportation, travel, rentals, etc.

　　52. Airbnb is a website that enables ownersand renters to complete transactions online.

　　53. The sharing economy is likely to go theway of online shopping.

　　54. One advantage of sharing is that ownersearn money from renting out items not made full use of.

　　55. Sharing appeals to the sociable in thatthey can meet new people.

　　参考答案

　　46~50 EAICJ

　　51~55 HAGEF