中国大学MOOC: On the U.S. side, the tensions between the two countries is tied to Trumps promise to reduce a trade deficit with China.

Section B Directions: Inthis section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached toit. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs.Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more thanonce. Each paragraph is marked with altter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet2. The rise of the sharing economy A) Last night 40,000people rented accommodation from a service that offers 250,000 rooms in 30,000cities in 192 countries. They chose their rooms and paid for everything online.But their beds were provided by private individuals, rather than a hotel chain. Hosts and guests were matched up by Airbnb, a firm based in San Francisco. Since its launch in 2008 more than 4million people have used it—2.5 million of them in 2012 alone. It isthe most prominent example of a huge new "sharing economy", in which people rent beds,cars, boats and other assets directly from each other, co-ordinated via the internet. B) You might think thisis no different from running a bed-and-breakfast (家庭旅店). owning a time share (分时度假房) or participating in a car pool. But technology has reduced transaction costs,making sharing assets cheaper and easier than ever—and therefore possible on a much larger scale. The big change is the availability of more data about people and things, which allows physical assets to be divided and consumed as services. Before the internet, renting a surfboard, a power tool or a parking space from someone else was feasible, but was usually more trouble than it was worth. Now websites such as Airbnb. Relay Rides and Snap Goods match up owners and renters; smart phones with GPS let people see where the nearest rentable car is parked; social networks provide a way to check up on people and build trust; and online payment systems handle the billing. What's mine is yours, for a fee C) Just as peer-to-peer businesses like eBay allow anyone to become a retailer, sharing sites 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 it suits them. Just go online or download an app. The model works for items that are expensive to buy and are widely owned bypeople who do not make full use of them. 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 on the subject, says the consumer peer-to-peer rental marketalone is worth $ 26 billion. Broader definitions of the sharing economy includepeer-to-peer lending or putting a solar panel on your roof and selling power back to the gr/d ( 电网). And it is not just individuals: the web makes it easier for companies to rent out spare offices and idle machines, too. But the core of the sharing economy is people renting things from each other. E) Such"collaborative (合作的)consumption" is a good thing for several reasons. Owners make money from underused assets. Airbnb says hosts in San Francisco who rent out their homes do so for an average of 58 nights a year, making $ 9,300. Car owners who renttheir vehicles to others using Relay Rides make an average of $250 a month; some make more than $1,000.Renters, meanwhile, pay less than they would if they bought the item themselves, or turned to a traditional provider such as a hotel or car-hirefirm. And there are environmental benefits, too: renting a car when you needit, rather than owning one, means fewer cars are required and fewer resourcesmust be devoted to making them. F) For sociable souls,meeting new people by staying in their homes is part of the charm. Curmudgeons(倔脾气的人) who imagine 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 out by platform owners, online reviews and ratings are usually posted by both parties to each transaction, which makes it easy to spot bad drivers, bathrobe-thieves and surfboard-wreckers. By using Facebook and other social networks, participants can check each other out and identify friends ( or friends of friends) incommon. An Airbnb user had her apartmenttrashed in 2011. But the remarkable thing is how well the system usually works. Peering into the future G) The sharing economyis a little like online shopping, which started in America 15 years ago. At first, people were worried 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 other offerings. Next, consider eBay, Having started out as a peer-to-peer marketplace, it is now dominated by professional"power sellers" ( many of whom started out as ordinary eBay users).The same may happen 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 getting involved too. Avis, a car-hire fn'm, has a share in a sharing rival. So do GM and Dalmler, two carmakers. In future, companies may develop hybrid (混合的) models,listing excess capacity (whether vehicles, equipment or office.space) on peer-to-peer rental sites. In the past, 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? In Amsterdam officials are using Airbnb listings to track down unlicensed hotels. In some American cities,peer-to-peer taxi services have been banned after lobbying by traditional taxi firms. The danger is that although some rules need to be updated to protect consumers from harm, existing rental businesses will try to destroy competition. People who rent out rooms should pay tax, of course, but they should not be regulated like a Ritz-Carltonhotel. 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 now big and disruptive (颠覆性的) enough for regulators and companiesto have woken up to it. That is a sign of its immense potential. It is time to start caring about sharing. 46. Sharing items suchas cars does good to the environment. 47. Airbnb's successclearly illustrates the emergence of a huge sharing economy. 48, The ma~or concern about the sharing economy is how the government regulates it. 49. The most frequently shared items are those expensive to buy but not fully used. 50. The sharing economy has a promising future. 51. Online sharing will change the way business is done in transportation, travel, rentals, etc. 52. Airbnb is a website that enables owners and renters to complete transactions online. 53. The sharing economyis likely to go the way of online shopping. 54. One advantage of sharing is that owners earn money from renting out items not made full useof. 55. Sharing appeals to the sociable in that they can meet new people. (注意：请按顺序填大写字母，不用填写题号） 答案：46. _______ 47. _______ 48. _______ 49. _______ 50. _______ 51. _______ 52. _______ 53. _______ 54. _______ 55. ________