雅思阅读练习 · Passage 2（经济与社会类）

Adapted in the style of The Economist — "The Office Exodus: How Remote Work Is Reshaping Cities" 题型组合：段落信息匹配（Matching Information）+ 句子填空（Sentence Completion）+ 单选（Multiple Choice）+ 判断（TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN）

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15–27.

The Office Exodus: How Remote Work Is Reshaping Cities

A For more than a century, the logic of the city has rested on a single assumption: that people need to be close to one another. Firms clustered in dense urban cores because proximity reduced the cost of exchanging ideas, and workers accepted long commutes because the wages and opportunities on offer justified them. Economists call this "agglomeration" — the productivity gain that comes from packing economic activity into a small area. Remote work, which went from fringe experiment to mass reality almost overnight during the pandemic, has called that assumption into question for the first time since the invention of the telephone.

B The first visible casualty has been the office itself. In many Western cities, the share of office space occupied has fallen well below pre-pandemic levels, and vacancy rates in downtown districts have reached heights not seen in decades. Landlords have responded by cutting rents, converting empty floors into residential units or simply mothballing buildings. The pain is uneven: gleaming towers in financial districts have suffered most, while suburban office parks, where employees often drove short distances, have fared comparatively well.

C The ripple effects extend far beyond real estate. Retailers and restaurants that once depended on the lunchtime crowds of office workers have seen revenues collapse; coffee chains, sandwich shops and dry cleaners have closed branches in city centres at record rates. Public transport operators face a fiscal hole, as fare revenue from daily commuters — historically their steadiest source of income — has not returned. Local governments, in turn, are counting the cost in lost business taxes and congestion charges.

D Yet the picture is not uniformly gloomy. Some second-tier cities have boomed as well-paid remote workers, priced out of capitals, relocated in search of space and sunshine. Their arrival has revived moribund high streets and pushed up house prices in places unaccustomed to such attention. The pattern resembles an earlier decentralisation: when the automobile and the telephone first made it possible to live far from work, the suburbs grew at the expense of the core — and the core adapted, reinventing itself around services rather than manufacturing.

E What makes the current shift different is its selectivity. Remote work is concentrated among the highly educated and the highly paid: a software engineer can work from a beach; a nurse or a barista cannot. This has sharpened an existing divide between footloose professionals, whose presence any city would welcome, and service workers, who must remain where the jobs are. Economists warn that the tax base of big cities may come to depend on a shrinking number of very rich residents, with uncomfortable consequences for public services.

F Cities have also discovered that they are not passive victims of technology. Facing the exodus, municipal authorities have begun to experiment: offering tax breaks to startups that anchor in the core, converting office blocks into housing and cultural venues, and redesigning public space to make downtowns places people visit for pleasure rather than merely for work. Early evidence suggests that "15-minute cities", where daily needs are within walking distance, can attract residents even in an era of remote work.

G The long-run outcome remains uncertain. Optimists point to history: cities have survived the car, the telephone and the internet, each of which was predicted to make them obsolete. Pessimists counter that remote work is different because it removes the very reason for the office — the unplanned encounter, the corridor conversation, the sense of being part of something larger than oneself. Both sides, however, agree on one point: the office will not disappear, but it will be smaller, more flexible and more deliberately designed for collaboration rather than routine.

H For individuals, the change is double-edged. Remote employees gain autonomy and time once lost to commuting, and surveys consistently show that most would rather keep some form of flexible working. But the same surveys reveal anxiety: a fear of being overlooked for promotion, of weakening the informal networks on which careers depend, and of a gradual erosion of the boundary between work and home. The city of the future will be shaped as much by these private calculations as by any policy decision.

Questions

Questions 15–20 段落信息匹配（Which paragraph contains the following information?）

15. a comparison with an earlier period of decentralisation
16. the different fortunes of two groups of workers
17. the reason why firms originally gathered in cities
18. action taken by city authorities in response
19. the financial difficulties of transport systems
20. workers' mixed feelings about flexible arrangements

Questions 21–25 句子填空（Complete the sentences. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.）

21. In financial districts, office ______ have reached levels not seen for decades.
22. Retailers and restaurants relied on the ______ of office workers for their revenue.
23. Remote workers priced out of capitals have moved to ______ cities.
24. Converting office blocks into housing is one way cities are trying to attract people back to their ______.
25. Both optimists and pessimists agree the office will be smaller and more ______.

Questions 26 单选（Multiple Choice）

26. What is the author's overall attitude towards the future of cities?

• A. Cities will inevitably decline as remote work becomes permanent.
• B. The outcome is uncertain, and cities will adapt but in a changed form.
• C. Remote work benefits everyone and cities should embrace it fully.
• D. Government policy will decide the fate of cities without exception.

Questions 27 判断（TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN）

27. Suburban office parks have suffered more than city-centre offices.

答案与解析 Answers & Explanations

Matching Information： 15. D（"The pattern resembles an earlier decentralisation: when the automobile and the telephone..."） 16. E（"a divide between footloose professionals... and service workers"） 17. A（"Firms clustered in dense urban cores because proximity reduced the cost of exchanging ideas"） 18. F（"municipal authorities have begun to experiment: offering tax breaks... converting office blocks..."） 19. C（"Public transport operators face a fiscal hole, as fare revenue... has not returned"） 20. H（"surveys reveal anxiety: a fear of being overlooked..."同时也有"gain autonomy"）

Sentence Completion（≤2 词，取自原文）： 21. vacancy rates（"vacancy rates in downtown districts have reached heights not seen in decades"） 22. lunchtime crowds（"depended on the lunchtime crowds of office workers"） 23. second-tier（"Some second-tier cities have boomed as well-paid remote workers... relocated"） 24. core（"converting office blocks into housing... to make downtowns places people visit"——F 段"anchor in the core"；答案 core） 25. flexible（"it will be smaller, more flexible and more deliberately designed"）

Multiple Choice：26-B（G 段"The long-run outcome remains uncertain... the office will not disappear, but it will be smaller, more flexible"）

TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN： 27. FALSE（B 段："Suburban office parks... have fared comparatively well"——郊区表现更好，与题干相反）