托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Price Revolution

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Price Revolution

Unprecedented inflation, or the price revolution, swept through Europe in the sixteenth century. The main cause of the price revolution was the population growth during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The population of Europe almost doubled between 1460 and 1620. Until the middle of the seventeenth century, the number of mouths to feed outran the capacity of agriculture to supply basic foodstuffs, causing the vast majority of people to live close to subsistence (the minimum food necessary to live). Until food production could catch up with the increasing population, prices, especially those of the staple food bread, continued to rise.

1.In stating that the inflation during the price revolution was "Unprecedented" the author means that this inflation

O did not end for a long time

O caused great harm

O occurred over a widespread area

O had never happened before

2.It can be inferred from paragraph 1 that which of the following changes might have lowered prices during the price revolution?

O Expanding agricultural production so that most people had enough food to eat

O Requiring most of the population to live close to subsistence

O Encouraging people to consume larger amounts of staple foods in their diets

O Reducing the price of expensive foods so that they cost about the same as staple foods

The other principal cause of the price revolution was probably the silver that flowed into Europe from the Americas via Spain, beginning in 1552. At some point, the influx of silver may have exceeded the necessary expansion of the money supply and may have begun contributing to the inflation. A key factor in the price revolution, then, was too many people with too much money chasing too few goods. The effects of the price revolution were momentous.

The price revolution had its greatest effect on farming. Food prices, which rose roughly twice as much as the prices of other goods, spurred ambitious farmers to take advantage of the situation and to produce for the expanding market; the opportunity for profit drove some farmers to work harder and manage their land better.

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 Food prices rose roughly twice as much as the prices of other goods in spite of the fact that some farmers worked harder and managed their land better.

O Greatly increased food prices encouraged some farmers to work harder and manage their land better in order to sell food on the growing market.

O Rising prices led farmers to produce other goods besides food for an expanding market, and this required that they work harder and manage their land better.

O Some ambitious farmers took advantage of the opportunity to drive up the price of goods, and they nearly doubled food prices.

⬛ All over Europe, landlords held their properties in the form of manors. ⬛ A particular type of rural society and economy had evolved on these manors in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. By the fifteenth century, much manor land was held by peasant tenants according to the terms of a tenure (relationship between tenants and landlords) known in England as copyhold. ⬛ The tenants had certain hereditary rights to the land in return for the performance of certain services and the payment of certain fees to the landlord ⬛ Principal among these rights was the use of the commons-the pasture, wood. and pond. For the copyholder, access to the commons often made the difference between subsistence and real want because the land tilled on the manor might not produce enough to support a family. Arable land was worked according to ancient custom. The land was divided into strips, and each peasant of the manor was traditionally assigned a certain number of strips This whole pattern of peasant tillage and rights in the commons was known as the open-field system. After changing little for centuries, it was met head-on by the incentives generated by the price revolution.

。。。。。托福阅读真题及题目答案省略！

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Price Revolution，10元有偿下载本篇完整版！