Suburb Housing Design托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

Suburb Housing Design托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

一、Suburb Housing Design托福听力原文：

NARRATOR:Listen to part of a lecture in an architecture class.The professor has been discussing housing designs.MALE PROFESSOR:Alright,in our last class we began our discussion of housing designs in the United States from the 1940's.You'll remember,for example,that we looked at some photos and discussed apartment complex in Chicago from that decade.Now,today,let's talk about housing design in the suburbs.The demand for low-cost housing outside the cities increased in the late 1940's after World War II as a whole generation of young families needed affordable housing,and a firm called Levitt&Sons strove to meet this demand in some pretty innovative ways.

They designed buildings based on the demands of the public,not so much their own artistic vision,and created a residential community in the state of New York that became known as Levittown.Levittown was the first suburb of its kind and it started out with 2,000 homes.They were called Cape Cod houses—the Cape Cod model—and they were designed to look like the historical cottages in the New England states,in the northeastern United States.

The original floor plan was very simple.The living room was in the front of the house,with windows looking out towards the street.You also had two bedrooms,um,a bathroom and a kitchen.Everything was on one floor.The bathroom was right next to the kitchen,which was a way of keeping building costs down,since the two rooms could rely on just one plumbing system.Another feature of this Cape Cod house is that it could be expanded,as families grew and needed more space.You had the downstairs,but up the stairs,the house actually had unfinished attic space as well.Levitt&Sons promoted their houses saying this attic space could easily be converted into another bedroom or even two,and then there was always the possibility of building additional rooms onto the house later.Each house was built the same way and with the same materials.—all parts were standardized—so houses could be built economically.This was important because it meant that they were affordable for young families who wanted to live outside of the city.As a result,what you had was a whole community of houses that,except for the color of their roof and walls,were identical.So eventually,there's going to be a demand for some variety,right?After a couple of years,Levitt&Sons came up with a second design—well,they called it a second design,because it had a slightly different roof.Plus,the exterior had a more modern look.This model was called a ranch house.Now,I'm guessing it wasn't too expensive or time-consuming for Levitt to come up with this idea,but it was certainly efficient and hugely popular with families.The Ranch is like the Cape Cod,except that the living room is in the back of the house instead of the front,and on this Ranch model,there is one more important feature that is not present in the Cape Cod.It has a large window in the living room called a"picture window",which gives you a kind of"framed view"of the outside.The way the Ranch is set up when you look out this picture window from the living room you're looking out from the back of the house instead of from the front.Parents could watch the children playing in the backyard,the grassy area behind the house rather than a view of the street.So here was a way for families to disconnect their home,their house,their private lives from the outside world,which was represented by the street that led to work and school,which really seems like the thing they had been looking for all along,but the floor plan was just like the Cape Cod only,you know,turned 90 degrees.Levitt&Sons offered their ranch houses for sales at a low price.They could do that because they were using the simple and therefore cost-saving building methods.Another way they kept construction prices down was to train workers who went from house to house doing a specific task,sort of like an assembly line.For example,you might have a painter whose job was to paint the doors of each house and then it would be someone else's job to install the doors.This way houses went up quickly,saving time and money.And the Levitt's ideas caught on.In the early 1950's,their designs became a model for suburb construction throughout the country.

二、Suburb Housing Design托福听力中文翻译：

旁白：在建筑课上听一节课的一部分。教授一直在讨论住房设计。男教授：好的，在上节课中，我们从20世纪40年代开始讨论美国的住房设计。例如，你会记得，我们看了一些照片，讨论了那十年芝加哥的公寓大楼。现在，我们来谈谈郊区的住房设计。第二次世界大战后的20世纪40年代末，由于整整一代年轻家庭都需要经济适用房，城市外对廉价住房的需求增加了，一家名为Levitt&Sons的公司努力以一些相当创新的方式满足这一需求。

他们根据公众的需求而不是他们自己的艺术眼光来设计建筑，并在纽约州创建了一个名为莱维敦的居住社区。莱维敦（Levittown）是该类型的第一个郊区，最初有2000套住房。它们被称为科德角小屋，即科德角模型，其设计与美国东北部新英格兰各州的历史小屋相似。

原来的平面图很简单。客厅在房子的前面，窗户朝着街道。你还有两间卧室，一间浴室和一间厨房。一切都在一层楼。浴室就在厨房旁边，这是一种降低建筑成本的方法，因为这两个房间只能依靠一个管道系统。科德角住宅的另一个特点是，随着家庭的增长，需要更多的空间，它可以扩建。你在楼下，但在楼上，房子实际上还有未完工的阁楼空间。Levitt&Sons公司推销他们的房子时表示，这个阁楼空间可以很容易地转换成另一间卧室，甚至两间卧室，之后总有可能在房子上再建一些房间。每栋房子都是用同样的方法和材料建造的-所有的部分都是标准化的，所以房屋可以经济地建造。这一点很重要，因为这意味着对于想住在城外的年轻家庭来说，他们是可以负担得起的。结果，你得到的是一个完整的房子社区，除了屋顶和墙壁的颜色，其他都是一样的。所以最终，会有对一些品种的需求，对吗？几年后，Levitt&Sons提出了第二种设计——他们称之为第二种设计，因为它的屋顶略有不同。此外，外观更具现代感。这个模型被称为牧场房屋。现在，我猜Levitt提出这个想法不会太贵或太耗时，但它确实很有效，并且深受家庭欢迎。牧场就像科德角，只是客厅在房子的后面，而不是前面。在这个牧场模型上，还有一个更重要的特征是科德角没有。客厅里有一扇大窗户，叫做“画窗”，可以让你看到外面的“框架视图”。牧场的设置方式当你从客厅的这扇窗户向外看时，你是从房子的后面而不是前面看的。家长们可以看到孩子们在后院玩耍，而不是在房子后面的草地上玩耍。因此，这是一种让家庭将他们的家、房子、私人生活与外部世界断开的方式，这条通向工作和学校的街道代表了这条街道，这似乎是他们一直在寻找的东西，但平面图就像科德角一样，你知道，只有90度的转弯。Levitt&Sons以低价出售他们的牧场房屋。他们之所以能够做到这一点，是因为他们使用的是简单的、因而节省成本的建筑方法。他们压低建筑价格的另一种方法是培训工人，让他们挨家挨户做特定的工作，有点像流水线。例如，您可能有一位油漆工，他的工作是油漆每间房子的门，然后安装门将是其他人的工作。这样房子很快就盖起来了，节省了时间和金钱。莱维特的想法很受欢迎。20世纪50年代初，他们的设计成为全国郊区建设的典范。

三、Suburb Housing Design托福听力问题：

Q1:1.What is the lecture mainly about?

A.Trends in housing designs in United States cities in the 1940s

B.The spread of the Levittown model across the United States

C.Ways that a building company met a demand for affordable housing

D.The importance of floor plans in meeting the needs of people

Q2:2.What feature of the Cape Cod house made it attractive for young families?

A.A living room that could be divided into bedrooms

B.Attic space that could be transformed into rooms

C.A backyard that was extremely spacious

D.A plumbing system that could easily be extended

Q3:3.Why does the professor discuss the living room window of the ranch house?

A.To explain that it helped families save money on heating costs

B.To point out that it helped families focus on their private lives

C.To compare it to the picture window in the Cape Cod house

D.To point out that it provided a view of the street in front of the house

Q4:4.What enabled Levitt&Sons to build houses economically?[Click on 2 answers.]

A.They were able to create new designs very quickly.

B.They used the same materials for every house.

C.They constructed houses near large cities.

D.They trained workers to perform specialized tasks.

Q5:5.What was a result of the building methods used to construct Levittown?

A.Similar towns were formed in other areas.

B.Housing developments took a long time to complete.

C.Levitt&Sons became known for their artistic vision.

D.Housing became less affordable in the 1950s.

Q6:6.What can be inferred about the professor when he says this:

A.He believes that the second design was an improvement over the first.

B.He doubts that the second design was as efficient as the first.

C.He believes that the two designs were similar.

D.He doubts that the change in the roof was necessary.

四、Suburb Housing Design托福听力答案：

A1:正确答案：C

A2:正确答案：B

A3:正确答案：B

A4:正确答案：BD

A5:正确答案：A

A6:正确答案：C

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