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  3. As the economy continues to flounder(to struggle helplessly), many families are forgoing summer vacations in favor of staying at

As the economy continues to flounder(to struggle helplessly), many families are forgoing summer vacations in favor of staying at

admin2015-03-25  19
问题     As the economy continues to flounder(to struggle helplessly), many families are forgoing summer vacations in favor of staying at home. But there’s a more interesting option that is just as cheap: vacationing in someone else’s home. Growing numbers of people here and abroad are seeking a thrifty change of scenery by skipping all the hotels and looking instead to swap(exchange)houses with strangers. Agree to use each other’s cars, and you can save big bucks on rentals too.
    Home exchanges are not new. At least one group, Intervac, has been facilitating such arrangements since 1953. But traffic online is particularly brisk these days, with several sites, including HomeExchange. com—which was founded in 1992 and, with some 28,000 listings, bills itself as the world’s largest home-exchange club—reporting that membership has increased 30% or more this year.
    For an annual fee that is usually less than $100, members can access thousands of listings for apartments, condos, villas, suburban homes and farms around the world. Initial contact is made through the sites via e-mail, with subsequent communication usually by phone.
    It’s hard to beat free access to a washer and dryer and fully-equipped kitchen, but swaps entail more planning than simply whipping out a credit card for a vacation package. Exchange seekers often contact dozens of people before they find someone willing and appropriate. For starters, location really matters. Kathleen Dwyer, a retired assistant principal who has been exchanging for six years, says she fielded lots of offers to swap when she posted her apartment in Manhattan. Now that she exchanges only her vacation home—an old sea captain’s house in a fishing village in Nova Scotia—swapping inquiries have slowed to a trickle.
    She has swapped with people as far away as Hawaii and New Zealand, and once she exchanged her one-bedroom co-op(with an alley view)for a large, upscale home on a lagoon(with a view of the ocean)in California. "I burst out laughing. I could not get over it," she said of the fine-artwork-filled home that the Marin County couple swapped with her so they could visit their daughter and her new baby. "They got this little, small apartment, and I got this million-dollar home. I laughed at the trade, but they were happy to be near their daughter in Manhattan, so it worked out fine. "
    Although home swappers(people who exchange things)often become such fans of the practice that they have a hard time paying for a hotel, the concept may sound dicey(uncertain)to the uninitiated. What about theft? Damage? Reasonable causes for concern, but equally unlikely. "Nobody is going to fly across the ocean or drive 600 miles to come steal your flat-screen TV," says Tony DiCaprio, President of 1stHomeExchange. com a four-year-old site that has seen membership increase 30% this year. "Remember," he notes,"at the same time they’re staying in your home, you are staying in their home. "
The sentence "traffic online is particularly brisk"(Line2, Para.2)most probably means
选项 A、home exchanges make the road traffic busier.
B、the online activities are very active.
C、touring online is very popular.
D、home exchanges online are not believable.
答案B
解析 语义理解题。由题干关键词定位至第二段。由该段第三句推知，现今房屋交换网站的增多应该是网络发展的结果，故推测brisk在此意为“兴旺的，繁荣的”，traffic指代“网络浏览”，[B]与之相符，故为正确答案。由第二段第三句可知，traffic并非指车辆交通，而是指网络流量，故排除[A]；第二段第三句只是提及网络的繁荣，并未提及旅游繁荣，故排除[C]；原文并没有涉及网络房屋交换的可信度，故排除[D]。
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