2. 外语
  3. My father’s reaction to the bank building at 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue in New York city was immediate and definite: "You won’

My father’s reaction to the bank building at 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue in New York city was immediate and definite: "You won’

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问题     My father’s reaction to the bank building at 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue in New York city was immediate and definite: "You won’t catch me putting my money in there!" he declared, "Not in that glass box!"
    Of course, my father is a gentleman of the old school, a member of the generation to whom a good deal of modern architecture is upsetting, but I am convinced that his negative response was not so much to the architecture as to a violation of his concept of the nature of money.
    In his generation money was thought of as a real commodity(实物) that could be carried, or stolen. Consequently, to attract the custom of a sensible man, a bank had to have heavy walls, barred windows, and bronze doors, to affirm the fact, however untrue, that money would be safe inside. If a building’s design made it appear impenetrable, the institution was necessarily reliable, and the meaning of the heavy wall as an architecture symbol dwelt in the prevailing attitude toward money.
    But the attitude toward money has, of course, changed. Excepting pocket money, cash of any kind is now rarely used; money as a tangible commodity has largely been replaced by credit. A deficit (赤字) economy, accompanied by huge expansion, has led us to think of money as product of the creative imagination. The banker no longer offers us a safe: he offers us a service in which the most valuable element is the creativity for the invention of large numbers.  It is in no way surprising, in view of this change in attitude, that we are witnessing the disappearance of the heavy-walled bank.
    Just as the older bank emphasized its strength, this bank by its architecture boasts of imaginative powers. From this point of view it is hard to say where architecture ends and human assertion(人们的说法) begins.
The main idea of this passage is that ______.
选项 A、money is not as valuable as it was in the past
B、changes have taken place in both the appearance and the concept of banks
C、the architectural style of the older bank is superior to that of the modern bank
D、prejudice makes the older generation think that the modern bank is unreliable
答案B
解析 主旨题。该题要求学生总结文章的主题。文章主要写了银行发展的两个方面：一是银行的外在建筑风格，过去的银行通常有heavy walls，barred windows以及bronze doors，给人以非常可靠、放心踏实的感觉；二是银行的功能转变。选项B正是恰当的概括，所以应该是正确答案。文章并无涉及现在和过去对钱的价值比较，所以A项“钱不如过去值钱”不对。文章也没有对比哪种建筑风格更好，所以C项“过去的银行的建筑风格比现代银行的建筑风格更好”也不对。 D项说“偏见使得老一辈人认为现代银行不可靠”，不符合文章意思。
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大学英语四级

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