托福閱讀真題Official 46 Passage 2（二）

托福閱讀真題Official 46 Passage 2（二）

The Commercial Revolution in Medieval Europe

Beginning in the 1160s,the opening of new silver mines in northern Europe led to the minting and circulation of vast quantities of silver coins.The widespread use of cash greatly increased the volume of international trade.Business procedures changed radically.The individual traveling merchant who alone handled virtually all aspects of exchange evolved into an operation involving three separate types of merchants:the sedentary merchant who ran the“home office,”financing and organizing the firm’s entire export-import trade;the carriers who transported goods by land and sea;and the company agents resident in cities abroad who,on the advice of the home office,looked after sales and procurements.

Commercial correspondence,unnecessary when one businessperson oversaw everything and made direct bargains with buyers and sellers,multiplied.Regular courier service among commercial cities began.Commercial accounting became more complex when firms had to deal with shareholders,manufacturers,customers,branch offices,employees,and competing firms.Tolls on roads became high enough to finance what has been called a road revolution,involving new surfaces and bridges,new passes through the Alps,and new inns and hospices for travelers.The growth of mutual trust among merchants facilitated the growth of sales on credit and led to new developments in finance,such as the bill of exchange,a device that made the long,slow,and very dangerous shipment of coins unnecessary.

The ventures of the German Hanseatic League illustrate these advancements.The Hanseatic League was a mercantile association of European towns dating from 1159.The league grew by the end of the fourteenth century to include about 200 cities from Holland to Poland.Across regular,well-defined trade routes along the Baltic and North seas,the ships of league cities carried furs,wax,copper,fish,grain,timber,and wine.These goods were exchanged for finished products,mainly cloth and salt,from western cities.At cities such as Bruges and London,Hanseatic merchants secured special trading concessions,exempting them from all tolls and allowing them to trade at local fairs.Hanseatic merchants established foreign trading centers,the most famous of which was the London Steelyard,a walled community with warehouses,offices,a church,and residential quarters for company representatives.By the late thirteenth century,Hanseatic merchants had developed an important business technique,the business register.Merchants publicly recorded their debts and contracts and received a league guarantee for them.This device proved a decisive factor in the later development of credit and commerce in northern Europe.

These developments added up to what one modern scholar has called“a commercial revolution.”In the long run,the commercial revolution of the High Middle Ages(A.D.1000–1300)brought about radical change in European society.One remarkable aspect of this change was that the commercial classes constituted a small part of the total population—never more than 10 percent.They exercised an influence far in excess of their numbers.The commercial revolution created a great deal of new wealth,which meant a higher standard of living.The existence of wealth did not escape the attention of kings and other rulers.Wealth could be taxed,and through taxation,kings could create strong and centralized states.In the years to come,alliances with the middle classes were to enable kings to weaken aristocratic interests and build the states that came to be called modern.

The commercial revolution also provided the opportunity for thousands of agricultural workers to improve their social position.The slow but steady transformation of European society from almost completely rural and isolated to relatively more urban constituted the greatest effect of the commercial revolution that began in the eleventh century.Even so,merchants and business people did not run medieval communities,except in central and northern Italy and in the county of Flanders.Most towns remained small.The nobility and churchmen determined the predominant social attitudes,values,and patterns of thought and behavior.The commercial changes of the eleventh through fourteenth centuries did,however,lay the economic foundation for the development of urban life and culture.

Question 3 of 14

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

A.understood

B.included

C.delivered

D.supervised

正確答案：D

題目詳解

題型分類(lèi)：詞匯題

選項(xiàng)分析：

詞匯所在的句子：Commercial correspondence,unnecessary when one businessperson oversaw everything and made direct bargains with buyers and sellers,multiplied。首先分析句子，詞匯位于整句的插入語(yǔ)部分，原句的意思是說(shuō)：當(dāng)一個(gè)商人可以監(jiān)管貿(mào)易的所有事項(xiàng)或者買(mǎi)賣(mài)雙方直接交易時(shí)，商業(yè)信函就不需要了，但是有了分工后它們被大量使用。oversaw是oversee的過(guò)去時(shí)，意思為“監(jiān)督，監(jiān)管”。注意oversee從構(gòu)詞法來(lái)看是over+see，意思千萬(wàn)不可以記為是“忽略，忽視”。

D選項(xiàng)：監(jiān)督，指導(dǎo)，符合文意，為正確答案。

A選項(xiàng)：理解，明白，和原文文意不符。

B選項(xiàng)：包括，包含，和原文文意不符。

C選項(xiàng)：傳送，傳遞，和原文文意不符。

Question 4 of 14

According to paragraph 2,which of the following was NOT an effect of the change in business procedures?

A.An increase in credit sales

B.The use of courier services between cities

C.The adoption of simpler accounting procedures

D.The improvement of roads

正確答案：C

題目詳解

題型分類(lèi)：否定事實(shí)信息題

原文定位：題干中所問(wèn)的問(wèn)題涵蓋整個(gè)段落，即商業(yè)程序的改變所帶來(lái)的影響有哪些，那么要對(duì)段落進(jìn)行標(biāo)記，然后比對(duì)答案。

選項(xiàng)分析：

全段一共五句話，1.Commercial correspondence...mutilated，所表述的是商業(yè)信函的變化；2.Regular courier service among commercial cities began，說(shuō)明商業(yè)城市間的常規(guī)郵政服務(wù)開(kāi)始了；3.Commercial accounting became more complex...，說(shuō)明了對(duì)商業(yè)財(cái)會(huì)的影響；4.Tolls on roads became high enough...，說(shuō)明了對(duì)公路收費(fèi)帶來(lái)的影響；5.The growth of mutual trust...，說(shuō)明了對(duì)商業(yè)互信的影響，以及商業(yè)互信惠及的一些商業(yè)行為。

C選項(xiàng)和第3句的表述互相矛盾，并不是變得更簡(jiǎn)單simpler，原文說(shuō)更加復(fù)雜more complex，答案為C。

A選項(xiàng)符合第5句當(dāng)中所表述的內(nèi)容，涉及商業(yè)互信。

B選項(xiàng)符合第2句中關(guān)于郵政業(yè)務(wù)的說(shuō)明。

D選項(xiàng)符合第4句中的關(guān)于道路的表述。

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