托福閱讀真題Official 46 Passage 2（三）

托福閱讀真題Official 46 Passage 2（三）

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 5 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.Credit sales and bills of exchange were devices that merchants developed in order to increase their mutual trust.

B.Merchants developed ways to finance their sales without having to rely on slow and dangerous shipments of coins.

C.Greater trust among merchants led to an increase in credit sales and to the use of bills of exchange that made the shipping of coins unnecessary.

D.Merchants began to trust one another when it became too slow and dangerous for a single merchant to ship coins.

正確答案：C

題目詳解

題型分類：簡化句子題

原文分析：所標(biāo)亮的證據(jù)話邏輯非常清晰，即“商人間的商業(yè)互信的增加所帶來的一些列好處”。那么分析句子來標(biāo)注幾個部分，所帶來的好處：1.the growth of sales on credit基于誠信而增加的銷售量；2.led to new development in finance新的金融業(yè)務(wù)的發(fā)展；3.shipment of coins unnecessary使得時間長，運輸慢且危險的貨幣運輸不再需要。根據(jù)因果關(guān)系，來分析選項。

選項分析：

C選項正確，邏輯和內(nèi)容均正確，涵蓋了題干分析中的1和3兩個點，即商業(yè)互信帶來的好處。

A選項邏輯關(guān)系錯誤，因果關(guān)系顛倒。

B選項句中的邏輯關(guān)系混亂，金融業(yè)務(wù)的發(fā)展和貨幣運輸并沒有直接關(guān)系。

D選項邏輯錯誤，因果關(guān)系顛倒。

Question 6 of 14

According to paragraph 3,Hanseatic merchants benefited by all of the following EXCEPT

A.the use of trading centers in distant cities

B.a new system of recording commercial transactions

C.the opening of overland trade routes across northern Europe

D.access to markets in about 200 cities

正確答案：C

題目詳解

題型分類：否定事實信息題

原文定位：從段落的第一句主旨句可以得知，整個段落都在討論漢薩同盟的商人所被惠及的方面。

選項分析：

由于本段共有10句話，因此將選項帶入原文去匹配信息，是最佳的做題方式。將選項ABCD中的關(guān)鍵定位詞帶回到原文中進(jìn)行比對，A.trading centers；B.new system,commercial transactions；C.the opening of overland trade routes,northen Europe；D.200 cities。

C選項，在第10句中找到定位詞Northern Europe，指這一機制在北歐的信貸和商業(yè)發(fā)展中起了決定性作用，和overland trade routes并沒有關(guān)系，因此答案為C。

A選項對應(yīng)文章中的第7句話，即Hanseatic merchants established foreign trading centers...。

B選項對應(yīng)文章中的第8句話，即Hanseatic merchants had developed an important business technique,the business register。

D選項對應(yīng)文章中的第3句話，即The league grew by the end of the fourteenth century to include about 200 cities from Holland to Poland。

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