托福阅读真题Official 46 Passage 2（二）

托福阅读真题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

正确答案：D

题目详解

题型分类：词汇题

选项分析：

词汇所在的句子：Commercial correspondence,unnecessary when one businessperson oversaw everything and made direct bargains with buyers and sellers,multiplied。首先分析句子，词汇位于整句的插入语部分，原句的意思是说：当一个商人可以监管贸易的所有事项或者买卖双方直接交易时，商业信函就不需要了，但是有了分工后它们被大量使用。oversaw是oversee的过去时，意思为“监督，监管”。注意oversee从构词法来看是over+see，意思千万不可以记为是“忽略，忽视”。

D选项：监督，指导，符合文意，为正确答案。

A选项：理解，明白，和原文文意不符。

B选项：包括，包含，和原文文意不符。

C选项：传送，传递，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

正确答案：C

题目详解

题型分类：否定事实信息题

原文定位：题干中所问的问题涵盖整个段落，即商业程序的改变所带来的影响有哪些，那么要对段落进行标记，然后比对答案。

选项分析：

全段一共五句话，1.Commercial correspondence...mutilated，所表述的是商业信函的变化；2.Regular courier service among commercial cities began，说明商业城市间的常规邮政服务开始了；3.Commercial accounting became more complex...，说明了对商业财会的影响；4.Tolls on roads became high enough...，说明了对公路收费带来的影响；5.The growth of mutual trust...，说明了对商业互信的影响，以及商业互信惠及的一些商业行为。

C选项和第3句的表述互相矛盾，并不是变得更简单simpler，原文说更加复杂more complex，答案为C。

A选项符合第5句当中所表述的内容，涉及商业互信。

B选项符合第2句中关于邮政业务的说明。

D选项符合第4句中的关于道路的表述。

>> 雅思 托福 免费测试、量身规划、让英语学习不再困难<<