2018年3月31日托福阅读真题+题目+答案+译文：Population Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Europe

2018年3月31日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Population Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Europe

1. In late seventeenth-century Europe, what had been evolution in population followed by stabilization changed to population revolution. Increasing contacts with the Americas brought more sophisticated knowledge of the advantages of new foods, particularly the potato. Originally a cool-weather mountain crop in the Americas, potatoes did well in the Pyrenees, Alps, and Scottish Highlands. They also grew well in the long, damp springtime of the northwest European plain. Whatever hesitancy peasants may have felt about eating potatoes quickly passed when famine threatened; after all, people who in famines desperately consumed grass, weeds, and the bark of trees hardly would have hesitated to eat a potato. By the later eighteenth and the nineteenth century, American foods had become the principal foodstuffs of many rural folk. Various agricultural publicists promoted adoption of these foods, and peasants found that potatoes could allow subsistence on smaller plots of land. Fried potatoes soon began to be sold on the streets of Paris in the 1680sthe original French fries. Governments, eager to promote population growth as a source of military and economic strength, also backed the potato.

欧洲(Europe)17世纪晚期，人口革命之后，紧随而来的是其带来的稳定。由于与美洲(Americas)的联系越来越多，更多复杂的、关于新食物优点的知识也被引进欧洲，尤其是关于土豆方面的。土豆原产于美洲气温凉爽的山地，在欧洲庇里牛斯山脉( Pyrenees)、阿尔卑斯山脉(Alps)和苏格兰高地(Scottish Highlands)生长的不错，在欧洲西北部平原漫长、湿润的春天时节里也长势喜人。无论当时的农民在吃土豆时是如何的犹豫不决，但在饥荒的威胁下，这种迟疑转瞬即逝。毕竟当时的遭受饥荒折磨的人们已经绝望地靠吃草和树皮来过活了，在吃土豆时几乎不会犹豫的。在之后的18和19世纪，美洲的食物已经成了很多欧洲平民百姓餐桌上的主要内容。各路农业宣传人员使这些食物得到了推广，同时农民发现土豆生长所占用的土地空间更小。很快，在17世纪80年代的巴黎街头，开始有人售卖炸土豆，也就是法式炸薯条的原型。迫切希望通过增加人口来增强军事和经济力量的政府，也得依托于土豆的力量。

2. Along with new foods, some landowners began to introduce other innovations. The nutritional base for a population revolution combined regional changes with the use of American foods. Dutch and English farmers drained more swamps and so increased cultivable land. Agricultural reformers further promoted the use of crops such as the turnip that return valuable nitrogen to the soil. Improvements in available tools, such as growing use of the scythe instead of the sickle for harvesting, and better methods of raising livestock also spread. All this took shape from the late seventeenth century onward, building on earlier agricultural changes. At the same time, rates of epidemic disease declined, in part because of more effective government controls over the passage of people and animals along traditional plague routes from the Middle East. It was the change in foods that really counted, however.

除了引进新的食物品种以外，一些地主开始引进其他的新鲜事物。区域性变化和美洲食物的引进共同构成了人口革命的营养基础。 荷兰(Dutch)和英国(English)的农民排干了更多的沼泽，从而获得了更多的耕地。农业改革者们进一步推广种植像白萝卜这种能以有价值的氮元素回报土壤的作物。可用农具得到改善，比如越来越多的人用长柄大镰刀取代普通镰刀来收割作物，同时更好的饲养家畜的方法也得到传播。这一切从17世纪晚期开始成形，建立在早期的农业变化上。同时，传染病率下降，部分是因为政府更为有效的控制了一贯通过人和动物传播瘟疫的中东航线。然而，真正起到主要作用的是食物结构的改变。这些发展为一场前所未有的人口增长提供了基础。在18世纪，几乎在欧洲的每个地区的人口都增长了50到100个百分点，而在1750年之后，人口增长达到最高值。哈布斯堡帝国(Hapsburg Empire )的人口从2千万增长到2.7千万，西班牙(Spain)从5百万增长到1千万，而普鲁士王国(Prussia)则从3百万增长到6百万。在整个19世纪，人口仍在继续增长。从欧洲整体来看，人口总量从1800年的18.8千万增长到1900年的40.1千万。如此令人印象深刻的增长比例着实是一场社会剧变。

3. These developments provided a framework for an unprecedented surge. In virtually every area of Europe, the population increased by 50 to 100 percent in the eighteenth century, with the greatest growth coming after 1750. The Hapsburg Empire grew from 20 million to 27 million people; Spain rose from 5 million to 10 million, and Prussia rose from 3 million to 6 million. Growth would continue throughout the nineteenth century. In Europe as a whole, population rose from 188 million in 1800 to 401 million in 1900. This was an upheaval of truly impressive proportions.

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托福阅读真题题目：

1..Paragraph 1 suggests that the European population before the late seventeenth century had been

A. growing slowly and then not at all

B. changing in distribution but not in the overall number of people

C. decreasing at a small but stable rate

D. alternating between periods of slow and fast growth

2..The word sophisticated in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. quickly obtained

B. highly developed

C. widely distributed

D. easily understood

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.

A. The constant threat of famine caused peasants to become desperate and eat unusual foods like grass, weeds, and the bark of trees.

B. Because famine forces people to eat foods they normally would not want to eat, peasants were willing to eat potatoes.

C. Although some people ate foods like potatoes during famine, others preferred to eat easily accessible foods like grass, weeds, and the bark of trees.

D. Famine had the greatest impact on peasants, whose regular diet of potatoes expanded to include other vegetation.

4..According to paragraph 1, all of the following contributed to the widespread adoption of the potato in Europe EXCEPT:

A. Peasants growing potatoes for their own use could support themselves on smaller plots of land.

B. Potatoes grew well in a variety of locations in Europe.

C. Potatoes were the preferred food of European military forces.

D. Agricultural publicists encouraged the public to eat potatoes.

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