Part A: Reading Comprehension
Text 3
We tend to think of the decades immediately following World War II as a time of prosperity and growth, with soldiers returning home by the millions, going off to college on the G. I. Bill and lining up at the marriage bureaus.
But when it came to their houses, it was a time of common sense and a belief that less could truly be more. During the Depression and the war, Americans had learned to live with less, and that restraint, in combination with the postwar confidence in the future, made small, efficient housing positively stylish.
Economic condition was only a stimulus for the trend toward efficient living. The phrase “less is more” was actually first popularized by a German, the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who like other people associated with the Bauhaus, a school of design, emigrated to the United States before World War II and took up posts at American architecture schools. These designers came to exert enormous influence on the course of American architecture, but none more so than Mies.
Mies’s signature phrase means that less decoration, properly organized, has more impact than a lot. Elegance, he believed, did not derive from abundance. Like other modern architects, he employed metal, glass and laminated wood—materials that we take for granted today but that in the 1940s symbolized the future. Mies’s sophisticated presentation masked the fact that the spaces he designed were small and efficient, rather than big and often empty.
The apartments in the elegant towers Mies built on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, for example, were smaller—two-bedroom units under 1,000 square feet—than those in their older neighbors along the city’s Gold Coast. But they were popular because of their airy glass walls, the views they afforded and the elegance of the buildings’ details and proportions, the architectural equivalent of the abstract art so popular at the time.
The trend toward “less” was not entirely foreign. In the 1930s Frank Lloyd Wright started building more modest and efficient houses—usually around 1,200 square feet—than the spreading two-story ones he had designed in the 1890s and the early 20th century.
The “Case Study Houses” commissioned from talented modern architects by California Arts & Architecture magazine between 1945 and 1962 were yet another homegrown influence on the “less is more” trend. Aesthetic effect came from the landscape, new materials and forthright detailing. In his Case Study House, Ralph Rapson may have mispredicted just how the mechanical revolution would impact everyday life—few American families acquired helicopters, though most eventually got clothes dryers—but his belief that self-sufficiency was both desirable and inevitable was widely shared.
31. The postwar American housing style largely reflected the Americans’
32. Which of the following can be inferred from Paragraph 3 about the Bauhaus?
33. Mies held that elegance of architectural design
34. What is true about the apartments Mies built on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive?
35. What can we learn about the design of the “Case Study Houses”?
答案与解析 (Answers)
31. [C] restraint and confidence.
解析：第二段末尾明确指出，大萧条和战争期间美国人学会了用更少的东西生活，这种“克制（restraint）”，结合战后对未来的“信心（confidence）”，使得小巧、高效的住房变得非常时髦。选项C是对原文 restraint 和 confidence 的直接复现。选项A是第一段中人们普遍的误解，并非指房屋风格的内涵。
32. [D] It had a great influence upon American architecture.
解析：第三段提到，包豪斯的设计师们（包括 Mies）在二战前移民美国并在建筑学院任教。紧接着说：“这些设计师们对美国建筑的进程产生了巨大的影响（exert enormous influence on the course of American architecture）”。由于这些设计师都与包豪斯有关，因此可以推断包豪斯对美国建筑产生了巨大影响，选D。
33. [C] was not reliant on abundant decoration.
解析：第四段第二句指出：“他认为，优雅并非源于丰富/大量（Elegance, he believed, did not derive from abundance）”。这直接对应选项C：“（优雅）不依赖于丰富的装饰（abundant decoration）”。这与他的名言“少即是多（less is more）”的理念完全一致。
34. [D] They shared some characteristics of abstract art.
解析：第五段描述了 Mies 建造的湖滨大道公寓，提到它们很受欢迎是因为玻璃墙、视野以及建筑细节和比例的优雅。段末评价这种建筑的细节和比例是“当时非常流行的抽象艺术的建筑等价物（the architectural equivalent of the abstract art so popular at the time）”。“等价物”说明它们与抽象艺术有共同的特征（shared some characteristics），故选D。
35. [B] Natural scenes were taken into consideration.
解析：最后一段提到“案例研究住宅（Case Study Houses）”时指出：“美学效果来自于景观（landscape）、新材料和直率的细节设计（Aesthetic effect came from the landscape, new materials and forthright detailing.）”。landscape（景观/风景）对应选项B中的 Natural scenes，说明在设计时考虑了自然风光。
全文翻译
我们倾向于将二战后的几十年视为繁荣与增长的时代，士兵们回到家乡，与新娘厮守，走进公司，购买了现代化的便利设施和新汽车。
但对大多数美国军人家庭来说，这一时期远非轻松的成长与繁荣。正像一通电话一样简单。这是由战后住房短缺造成的困苦和牺牲以及劳工运动的动荡所标记的时代。市场提供的最便宜住房，即所谓的经济适用房，普通家庭是负担不起的。
那以前只有很少的法律保护家庭住房。
但对许多人更糟糕的，是许多美国人被排除在体面住房的参与之外。有些人被排除在就业机会之外，有些人被排除在平等投票权之外，而许多人被排除在有尊严和安全住房的权利之外。一些住房项目促进了种族融合，但大多数为少数民族保留的住房都在种族歧视、隔离的社区中。
除了新的经济适用房的建设，还有对公共住房的重大投资——为最贫困的美国人提供租金补贴，以及为保护城镇和城市的规划法而工作的城市专业人士的新队伍。联邦住房管理局为全美的购房者提供了低成本、政府担保的抵押贷款。
然而，许多美国人对住房的排斥持续至今，从未被消除。
核心长难句精解 (High-Light)
1. 伴随状语与非谓语动词：
"We tend to think of the decades immediately following World War II as a time of prosperity and growth, with soldiers returning home by the millions, going off to college on the G. I. Bill and lining up at the marriage bureaus."
【解析】with + 宾语 (soldiers) + 宾补 (现在分词短语) 构成了复合结构作伴随状语。三个现在分词 `returning`, `going off`, `lining up` 并列，生动描绘了二战后美国社会繁荣发展的景象。
"We tend to think of the decades immediately following World War II as a time of prosperity and growth, with soldiers returning home by the millions, going off to college on the G. I. Bill and lining up at the marriage bureaus."
【解析】with + 宾语 (soldiers) + 宾补 (现在分词短语) 构成了复合结构作伴随状语。三个现在分词 `returning`, `going off`, `lining up` 并列，生动描绘了二战后美国社会繁荣发展的景象。
2. 复杂的定语从句与对比结构：
"The phrase “less is more” was actually first popularized by a German, the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who like other people associated with the Bauhaus, a school of design, emigrated to the United States before World War II and took up posts at American architecture schools."
【解析】who 引导非限制性定语从句，修饰 Mies。从句的主干是 who emigrated... and took up...。中间插入了 like other people associated with the Bauhaus 作方式/比较状语，而 a school of design 又是 the Bauhaus 的同位语。
"The phrase “less is more” was actually first popularized by a German, the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who like other people associated with the Bauhaus, a school of design, emigrated to the United States before World War II and took up posts at American architecture schools."
【解析】who 引导非限制性定语从句，修饰 Mies。从句的主干是 who emigrated... and took up...。中间插入了 like other people associated with the Bauhaus 作方式/比较状语，而 a school of design 又是 the Bauhaus 的同位语。
3. 同位语与比喻表达：
"But they were popular because of their airy glass walls, the views they afforded and the elegance of the buildings’ details and proportions, the architectural equivalent of the abstract art so popular at the time."
【解析】句末的 the architectural equivalent... 是前面 the elegance of the buildings’ details and proportions 的同位语，将建筑的细节与比例之美比作了当时流行的抽象艺术。这是解出第34题的直接依据。
"But they were popular because of their airy glass walls, the views they afforded and the elegance of the buildings’ details and proportions, the architectural equivalent of the abstract art so popular at the time."
【解析】句末的 the architectural equivalent... 是前面 the elegance of the buildings’ details and proportions 的同位语，将建筑的细节与比例之美比作了当时流行的抽象艺术。这是解出第34题的直接依据。