托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Transport of Food to Rome

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Transport of Food to Rome

During the reign of Emperor Augustus (63 B.C-14 A.D.) ，the city of ancient Rome may have had as many as 1,200,000 inhabitants. With so many residents, the city needed an extremely large food supply, necessitating the development of an improved system for shipping food. Transportation of bulk goods by land was prohibitively expensive and slow. It simply was not practical to haul a wagonload of wheat very far, for example, since the animals needed to pull the wagon would quickly eat an amount of food equal to the relatively limited amount that could be carried in the wagon itself. The solution to this problem was to move goods by sea. Scholars have estimated that the cost of shipping grain from one end of the Mediterranean to the other was cheaper than hauling the same amount of grain 120ilometers overland. It Was perhaps 40 times more expensive to transport goods by land rather than by sea, and while it was somewhat more costly to move goods along a river than over the open ocean, river transport was still many times more efficient than land transport.

1.The word “necessitating” in the passage is closest in meaning to

O requiring

O encouraging

O making worthwhile

O beginning

passage is closest in meaning to

2.According to paragraph 1, which of the following is true about the transportation of goods by river in ancient Rome?

O It was often as slow as land transport.

O It was more costly than sea transport but less costly than land transport.

O It could not be used to transport goods more than 120kilometers.

O It was preferred for transporting grains but not for other types of goods.

Since Italian resources were not sufficient to feed Rome. Romans naturally looked to the Roman-controlled areas that were closest to Rome and that had access to the sea. The first provinces that had surplus grain collected from them and transported to the city of Rome in large quantities were, logically enough, the nearby islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Once Rome had conquered the coast of North Africa, the foods from this region were rounded up and routed toward the city of Rome as well. By the first century A.D., Egypt and the coastal areas of Spain and Gaul had been added to this list. Despite its distance from Rome, Egypt in particular was an important source of grain. The safe arrival of the Egyptian grain fleet off the Coast of Italy was a major cause for celebration.

3.According to paragraph 2, what was one reason that Rome turned first to Sicily and Sardinia for food to feed its population?

O Sicily and Sardinia were relatively close to Rome.

O Sicily and Sardinia could easily obtain large quantities of grain from Egypt and North Africa.

O Sicily and Sardinia produced more grain than did other Mediterranean areas.

O Sicily and Sardinia were more fully under Roman control than were other Rom an provinces.

4.What is the function of the last sentence in paragraph 2?

O To support the claim that Egypt was a particularly important source of grain

O To explain why it was necessary to add Egypt to the list of grain suppliers by the first century A.D..

O To provide evidence showing that Italian resources were not sufficient to feed Rome

O To show that Romans preferred Egyptian grain to grain from Spain and Gaul

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