单选题 Architects are hopeless when it comes to deciding whether the public will view their designs as marvels or monstrosities, according to a study by Canadian psychologists. They say designers should go back to school to learn about ordinary people's tastes. Many buildings that appeal to architects get the thumbs down from the public. Robert Gifford of the University of Victoria in British Columbia decided to find out whether architects understand public preferences and simply disagree with them, or fail to understand the lay person's view. With his colleague Graham Brown, he asked 25 experienced architects to look at photos of 42 large buildings in the US, Canada, Europe and Hong Kong. The architects predicted how the public would rate the buildings on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 represented "terrible" and 10 "excellent". A further 27 people who were not architects also scored the buildings out of 10. In addition, eight architects gave their own personal ratings of the buildings. The three groups tended to agree among themselves on a building's merits. And architects correctly predicted that lay people would on average rate buildings higher than they did themselves. But for individual building, the architect's perceptions of what the lay people would think were often way off the mark. "Some architects are quite good at predicting lay preferences, but others are not only poor at it, they get it backwards." says Gifford. For instance, architects gave the Stockley Park Building B-3 offices in London a moderate rating of 5.2. They thought the public would like it much better, predicting a rating of 6.3. But the public actually disliked the offices, and gave it 4.7. Gifford thinks that lay people respond to specific features of buildings, such as durability and originality, and hope to pin down what they are. "Architects in architecture school need to be taught how lay people think about buildings," Gifford concludes. He doesn't think designers should pander to the lowest common denominator, but suggests they should aspire towards buildings that appeal to the public and architects alike, such as the Bank of China building in Hong Kong. Marco Goldschmeid of the Richard Rogers Partnership, designers of the Millennium Dome in London, thinks the study is flawed. "The authors have assumed, wrongly, that buildings can be meaningfully judged from photographs rather than actual visits," he says. Goldschmeid thinks it would be more significant and interesting to look at the divergence of public taste between generations.

单选题 What does the first paragraph of this passage imply?

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】解析：根据文章第一段“Architects are hopeless when it comes to deciding…designers should go back toschool to learn about ordinary people’s tastes．”可知，根据加拿大心理学家的一项研究，建筑师无法判断公众将怎样对待他们的建筑设计，是当做奇迹还是垃圾。研究人员声称建筑设计师应该重新回到学校学习一下大众对建筑的品位。换言之，建筑师不是很了解公众的品位。据此判断，答案是D。

单选题 Through his study, Robert Gifford found that______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】解析：根据文章第四段第二句“And architects correctly predicted that lay people would on average rate buildingshigher than they did themselves．”可知，建筑师正确地预测到，外行通常给建筑物的打分总体偏高。换言之，建筑师的打分总体低于外行。文中说三组人群的打分内部趋向于一致，而非三组人群之间相似，故排除A项。文中说有些建筑师的预测很准确，有些建筑师的预测很糟糕，故排除C、D两项。据此判断，答案是B。

单选题 From the passage we can learn that Bank of China building in Hong Kong______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】解析：根据文章第六段第二句“He doesn’t think designers should pander to the lowest common denominator,but suggests they should aspire towards buildings that appeal to the public and architects alike，such as the Bank ofChina building in Hong Kong．”可知，吉福德并不认为设计师应该迎合最低品位，而是认为应该追求公众和建筑师都欣赏的建筑物，比如香港的中国银行建筑。据此判断，答案是C。