托福阅读真题Official 46 Passage 2（一）

托福阅读真题Official 46 Passage 2（一）

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 1 of 14

According to paragraph 1,one effect of the increased use of cash was that

A.an individual merchant no longer performed all aspects of trading operations

B.a company’s home office declined in importance

C.merchants no longer had to transport their goods to distant places

D.the volume of trade declined in areas lacking silver mines

正确答案：A

题目详解

题型分类：事实信息题

原文定位：定位词increased use of cash。

选项分析：

A选项正确，第一段最后一句指出：the individual traveling merchant...evolved into an operation involving three separate types of merchants...，可见，商人的角色发生了变化，分工更细致了。A是对这部分内容的同义转述。

B选项为和原文相矛盾，最后一句说位于home office的商人要financing and organizing the firm's entire export-import trade，而不是说home office的重要性下降。

C选项和原文矛盾，同样是原文最后一句说明：the carriers who transported goods by land and sea，说明商人依然需要通过海路运输进行贸易往来，而不是不在需要远距运输。

D选项则为物种生有，原味中并没有说明silver mines和trade之间的联系与关系。

Question 2 of 14

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

A.fundamentally

B.quickly

C.unexpectedly

D.gradually

正确答案：A

题目详解

题型分类：词汇题

选项分析：

词汇所在的句子Business procedures changed radically，意为“商业程序彻底地发生了改变”，单词radically作为状语修饰changed，表明变化的程度。radically在这里的意思是“彻底地，完全地”。

A选项：根本地，从根本上；符合文意，为正确选项。

B选项：快速地，迅速地；不符合文意。

C选项：意外地，出乎意料地；不符合文意。

D选项：逐步地，逐渐地；不符合文意。