托福阅读真题Official 46 Passage 2（三）

托福阅读真题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.

正确答案：C

题目详解

题型分类：简化句子题

原文分析：所标亮的证据话逻辑非常清晰，即“商人间的商业互信的增加所带来的一些列好处”。那么分析句子来标注几个部分，所带来的好处：1.the growth of sales on credit基于诚信而增加的销售量；2.led to new development in finance新的金融业务的发展；3.shipment of coins unnecessary使得时间长，运输慢且危险的货币运输不再需要。根据因果关系，来分析选项。

选项分析：

C选项正确，逻辑和内容均正确，涵盖了题干分析中的1和3两个点，即商业互信带来的好处。

A选项逻辑关系错误，因果关系颠倒。

B选项句中的逻辑关系混乱，金融业务的发展和货币运输并没有直接关系。

D选项逻辑错误，因果关系颠倒。

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

正确答案：C

题目详解

题型分类：否定事实信息题

原文定位：从段落的第一句主旨句可以得知，整个段落都在讨论汉萨同盟的商人所被惠及的方面。

选项分析：

由于本段共有10句话，因此将选项带入原文去匹配信息，是最佳的做题方式。将选项ABCD中的关键定位词带回到原文中进行比对，A.trading centers；B.new system,commercial transactions；C.the opening of overland trade routes,northen Europe；D.200 cities。

C选项，在第10句中找到定位词Northern Europe，指这一机制在北欧的信贷和商业发展中起了决定性作用，和overland trade routes并没有关系，因此答案为C。

A选项对应文章中的第7句话，即Hanseatic merchants established foreign trading centers...。

B选项对应文章中的第8句话，即Hanseatic merchants had developed an important business technique,the business register。

D选项对应文章中的第3句话，即The league grew by the end of the fourteenth century to include about 200 cities from Holland to Poland。