托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Food Production in the Early Modern World

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Food Production in the Early Modern World

Starting in the sixteenth century, the population of Eurasia (the combined continental landmass of Europe and Asia) began an upward surge that, while the result of many factors, owed much to the new foods just coming out of the New World (the Americas). In China, the arrival of maize and sweet potatoes contributed to an increase in population from 140 million in 1650 to 400 million in 1850. Since maize could be grown in areas that were too dry for rice, and on hillsides that could not be irrigated Jt added to the food supply and allowed people to live in new places. The uplands of the Yangtze basin were deforested to make way for the production of indigo and jute (nonfood crops) because the peasants who grew them could live on maize and sweet potatoes, which grew well in the hills. One practice that allowed food production to keep pace with a growing population was that of multiple cropping. When rice is grown in paddies, it absorbs most of its nutrients from water rather than soil, so it can be repeatedly cropped on the same land without the need to leave the land fallow (unplanted) to allow the soil to recover.Farmers in southern China could sometimes produce two or even three crops a year from a single plot of land.

1.According to paragraph 1, which of the following was an advantage of planting maize and sweet potatoes?

A They absorb few of their nutrients from the soil.

B More than one crop can be produced a year on the same land.

C They can be grown in places that are not wet enough for some other crops.

D They grow well together with nonfood crops such as indigo and jute.

2.According to paragraph 1, what is true about rice grown in paddies?

A It often does well in areas that are unsuitable for many other crops.

B It makes effective use of plots of land that cannot be irrigated in other ways.

C It contributes important nutrients to the soil on which the paddies are located.

D It can yield more than a single crop per year on a given plot of land.

In Europe, meanwhile, the new crops played a part in enabling the population to grow from 103 million in 1650 to 274 million in 1850. During the sixteenth century, Europe's staple crops, wheat and rye, produced about half as much food per hectare (measured by weight) as maize did in the Americas, and about a quarter as much as rice did in southern Asia. So the arrival of maize and potatoes in Europe provided a way to produce much more food from the same amount of land. The most striking example was that of Ireland, where the population increased from around 500,000 in 1660 to 9 million in 1840—something that would not have been possible without the potato. Without it, the whole country could only have produced enough wheat to support 5 million people. Potatoes meant that there was enough food to support nearly twice this number even as wheat continued to be grown for export, and potatoes could be grown on European land that was unsuitable for wheat. Being better fed made people healthier and more resistant to disease, causing the death rate to fall and the birth rate to rise. And what potatoes did to the north of Europe, maize did to the south, the populations of Spain and Italy almost doubled during the eighteenth century.

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