托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Arrival of American Cotton in Europe

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Arrival of American Cotton in Europe

1  The spread of American crops across Europe in the eighteenth century drastically changed the continent's economy. As people began to eat more American potatoes and mill (grind) less wheat flour, the mills were freed to process an inedible American product—cotton. Some types of cotton had been grown in India and the Middle East for centuries, but only very small quantities of it ever reached Europe. This cotton was not only expensive, but weak and difficult to weave because of its short strands. Asiatic cottons had a strand length of only about 1 centimeter, but American upland cotton usually grew to 2 centimeters or more. Meanwhile, the tropical American cotton called Sea Island cotton could grow to 5 centimeters. In Europe the short strands of the Asiatic cotton had served primarily for padding jerkins (sleeveless jackets) under the coats of armor worn in battle. The long-strand American cotton so surpassed in quality the Asiatic cotton that some of the first Europeans who came to America mistook Native American cloth for silk and interpreted its abundance as yet further proof that these new lands lay close to China, where silk has long been produced.

1.Paragraph 1 suggests that which of the following contributed to increased cotton production in Europe?

A A lack of silk being imported from China

B A decrease in the amount of flour being consumed

C The construction of additional mills

D Increased trade with India and the Middle East

2.In Paragraph 1,why does the author provide information about strand lengths of different types of cotton?

O To emphasize how skilled Native Americans were at weaving cotton

O To support the claim that Asiatic cotton was more suitable for padding jerkins than American cotton was

O To explain why American cotton was of much higher quality than Asiatic cotton was

O To suggest that American cotton originally came from China

2  Traditionally, Europeans wore wools supplemented by leather. They wove everything, from their underwear to their hats, from wool. Only the very rich could afford luxury fabrics such as silk or linen. But the quantity of wool was determined by the number of sheep, and this was determined by the amount of grazing space. Using only sheep to produce cloth ensures a slow and inefficient system that consumes a large parcel of land to clothe each person and limits the amount of clothing available. As long as Europe depended primarily on wool for clothing, peasants could spin it and weave it with simple home technology. The limiting factor in cloth manufacture was the amount of wool that the land was capable of producing, not the ability of the weavers to make cloth. Since the number of sheep determined the amount of wool for weaving,peasants lacked incentives to develop machines or more efficient ways to make clothing. This situation changed with the massive influx of cotton from America. Suddenly, the peasants and the weavers had more fiber than they could weave. They lacked the labor to process so much fiber. Europe desperately needed more energy than it had in human and animal power, and the most readily available source for creating new energy lay in the waterwheels already in place throughout the continent, which became the foundation of the first textile factories.

3.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.

O Because waterwheels were already in place throughout the European continent, the human and animal sources of power were less needed.

O Europe desperately needed more energy than was readily available, so the foundations of new waterwheels were created throughout the continent.

O Power from humans and animals was readily available throughout the continent and became the foundation of the first textile factories.

O The already available waterwheels supplied the needed energy not provided by humans and animals and became the foundation of the first European textile factories.

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