托福閱讀真題Official 48 Passage 1（一）

托福閱讀真題Official 48 Passage 1（一）

Chinese Population Growth

Increases in population have usually been accompanied(indeed facilitated)by an increase in trade.In the Western experience,commerce provided the conditions that allowed industrialization to get started,which in turn led to growth in science,technology,industry,transport,communications,social change,and the like that we group under the broad term of“development.”However,the massive increase in population that in Europe was at first attributed to industrialization starting in the eighteenth century occurred also and at the same period in China,even though there was no comparable industrialization.

It is estimated that the Chinese population by 1600 was close to 150 million.The transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties(the seventeenth century)may have seen a decline,but from 1741 to 1851 the annual figures rose steadily and spectacularly,perhaps beginning with 143 million and ending with 432 million.If we accept these totals,we are confronted with a situation in which the Chinese population doubled in the 50 years from 1790 to 1840.If,with greater caution,we assume lower totals in the early eighteenth century and only 400 million in 1850,we still face a startling fact:something like a doubling of the vast Chinese population in the century before Western contact,foreign trade,and industrialization could have had much effect.

To explain this sudden increase we cannot point to factors constant in Chinese society but must find conditions or a combination of factors that were newly effective in this period.Among these is the almost complete internal peace maintained under Manchu rule during the eighteenth century.There was also an increase in foreign trade through Guangzhou(southern China)and some improvement of transportation within the empire.Control of disease,like the checking of smallpox by variolation may have been important.But of most critical importance was the food supply.

Confronted with a multitude of unreliable figures,economists have compared the population records with the aggregate data for cultivated land area and grain production in the six centuries since 1368.Assuming that China’s population in 1400 was about 80 million,the economist Dwight Perkins concludes that its growth to 700 million or more in the 1960s was made possible by a steady increase in the grain supply,which evidently grew five or six times between 1400 and 1800 and rose another 50 percent between 1800 and 1965.This increase of food supply was due perhaps half to the increase of cultivated area,particularly by migration and settlement in the central and western provinces,and half to greater productivity—the farmers’success in raising more crops per unit of land.

This technological advance took many forms:one was the continual introduction from the south of earlier-ripening varieties of rice,which made possible double-cropping(the production of two harvests per year from one field).New crops such as corn(maize)and sweet potatoes as well as peanuts and tobacco were introduced from the Americas.Corn,for instance,can be grown on the dry soil and marginal hill land of North China,where it is used for food,fuel,and fodder and provides something like one-seventh of the food energy available in the area.The sweet potato,growing in sandy soil and providing more food energy per unit of land than other crops,became the main food of the poor in much of the South China rice area.

Productivity in agriculture was also improved by capital investments,first of all in irrigation.From 1400 to 1900 the total of irrigated land seems to have increased almost three times.There was also a gain in farm tools,draft animals,and fertilizer,to say nothing of the population growth itself,which increased half again as fast as cultivated land area and so increased the ratio of human hands available per unit of land.Thus the rising population was fed by a more intensive agriculture,applying more labor and fertilizer to the land.

Question 1 of 14

Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage?Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A.Commerce,industrialization,and development are common features of the Western experience.

B.Trade,industrialization,and development accelerated social change in Western societies.

C.Trade and industrialization brought about development in Western societies.

D.In Western societies,social change provided the conditions for development in a number of areas.

正確答案：C

題目詳解

題型分類：簡化句子題

原文分析：考察識別主干內(nèi)容和核心邏輯的能力。按照西方經(jīng)驗，商業(yè)給工業(yè)提供開始的條件，反過來又促進(jìn)很多方面的發(fā)展，比如科學(xué)、技術(shù)、工業(yè)、交通、通訊、社會改變，以及其他我們從廣義上歸類為“發(fā)展”的類似方面。注意原文的兩處邏輯allowed industrialization to get started和led to都是因果邏輯。

選項分析：

C選項貿(mào)易和工業(yè)帶來了西方社會的發(fā)展。和原文一致，正確。

A選項商業(yè)，工業(yè)，發(fā)展都是西方經(jīng)驗里的常見特征。與原文主干不符，同時也缺少原文中的因果關(guān)系，錯。

B選項貿(mào)易，工業(yè)，以及發(fā)展都促進(jìn)了西方社會的改變。其中，原因中多了發(fā)展這個詞，錯。

D選項在西方社會中，社會改變提供了其他方面的發(fā)展的條件。而文中是商業(yè)提供的條件，錯。

Question 2 of 14

The word“attributed”in the passage is closest in meaning to

A.accustomed

B.credited

C.exposed

D.transformed

正確答案：B

題目詳解

題型分類：詞匯題

選項分析：

原文中說大量人口增長怎么著工業(yè)的發(fā)展，通過上下文我們知道這里應(yīng)該是因果關(guān)系“歸因于”。詞匯所在句However,the massive increase in population that in Europe was at first attributed to industrialization starting in the eighteenth century意思是歐洲人口暴增，起初被認(rèn)為是18世紀(jì)工業(yè)革命開始導(dǎo)致的。attributed to是歸因于、導(dǎo)致，表示因果關(guān)系。

B選項：歸功勞于，正確。

A選項：習(xí)慣。

C選項：暴露。

D選項：改變。

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