托福閱讀真題Official 50 Passage 1（三）

托福閱讀真題Official 50 Passage 1（三）

American Railroads

In the United States,railroads spearheaded the second phase of the transportation revolution by overtaking the previous importance of canals.The mid-1800s saw a great expansion of American railroads.The major cities east of the Mississippi River were linked by a spiderweb of railroad tracks.Chicago’s growth illustrates the impact of these rail links.In 1849 Chicago was a village of a few hundred people with virtually no rail service.By 1860 it had become a city of 100,000,served by eleven railroads.Farmers to the north and west of Chicago no longer had to ship their grain,livestock,and dairy products down the Mississippi River to New Orleans;they could now ship their products directly east.Chicago supplanted New Orleans as the interior of America’s main commercial hub.

The east-west rail lines stimulated the settlement and agricultural development of the Midwest.By 1860 Illinois,Indiana,and Wisconsin had replaced Ohio,Pennsylvania,and New York as the leading wheat-growing states.Enabling farmers to speed their products to the East,railroads increased the value of farmland and promoted additional settlement.In turn,population growth in agricultural areas triggered industrial development in cities such as Chicago,Davenport(Iowa),and Minneapolis,for the new settlers needed lumber for fences and houses and mills to grind wheat into flour.

Railroads also propelled the growth of small towns along their routes.The Illinois Central Railroad,which had more track than any other railroad in 1855,made money not only from its traffic but also from real estate speculation.Purchasing land for stations along its path,the Illinois Central then laid out towns around the stations.The selection of Manteno,Illinois,as a stop of the Illinois Central,for example,transformed the site from a crossroads without a single house in 1854 into a bustling town of nearly a thousand in 1860,replete with hotels,lumberyards,grain elevators,and gristmills.By the Civil War(1861–1865),few thought of the railroad-linked Midwest as a frontier region or viewed its inhabitants as pioneers.

As the nation’s first big business,the railroads transformed the conduct of business.During the early 1830s,railroads,like canals,depended on financial aid from state governments.With the onset of economic depression in the late 1830s,however,state governments scrapped overly ambitious railroad projects.Convinced that railroads burdened them with high taxes and blasted hopes,voters turned against state aid,and in the early 1840s,several states amended their constitutions to bar state funding for railroads and canals.The federal government took up some of the slack,but federal aid did not provide a major stimulus to railroads before 1860.Rather,part of the burden of finance passed to city and county governments in agricultural areas that wanted to attract railroads.Such municipal governments,for example,often gave railroads rights-of-way,grants of land for stations,and public funds.

The dramatic expansion of the railroad network in the 1850s,however,strained the financing capacity of local governments and required a turn toward private investment,which had never been absent from the picture.Well aware of the economic benefits of railroads,individuals living near them had long purchased railroad stock issued by governments and had directly bought stock in railroads,often paying by contributing their labor to building the railroads.But the large railroads of the 1850s needed more capital than such small investors could generate.Gradually,the center of railroad financing shifted to New York City,and in fact,it was the railroad boom of the 1850s that helped make Wall Street in New York City the nation’s greatest capital market.The stocks of all the leading railroads were traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during the 1850s.In addition,the growth of railroads turned New York City into the center of modern investment firms.The investment firms evaluated the stock of railroads in the smaller American cities and then found purchasers for these stocks in New York City,Philadelphia,Paris,London,Amsterdam,and Hamburg.Controlling the flow of funds to railroads,the investment bankers began to exert influence over the railroads’internal affairs by supervising administrative reorganizations in times of trouble.

Question 5 of 14

The author mentions“Manteno,Illinois”in order to

A.give an example of how railroads decided which small towns would be selected for stations

B.illustrate the power of railroads to determine where towns would come into existence

C.explain how some railroads were able to make more money from real estate speculation than from railroad traffic

D.show how people’s view of the Midwest as a frontier region had changed by the Civil War

正確答案：B

題目詳解

題型分類：修辭目的題

題干分析：本題考察句子與句子之間的關系。

選項分析：

由原句可以得知，提及Manteno,Illinois是為了舉一個例子，而舉例一般用于闡述上文觀點即第三句：為了火車站買土地，the Illinois Central之后在火車站周圍布局了城鎮(zhèn)，這與B選項determine where towns would come into existence：決定哪里會有城鎮(zhèn)形成對應。

A選項small towns would be selected for stations與第三句laid out towns around the stations矛盾，是先有火車站再有城鎮(zhèn)，而不是為火車站選城鎮(zhèn)。

C選項more money from real estate speculation張冠李戴，原文說的是more track than any other railroad。

D選項，出自最后一段，但原文意為在內戰(zhàn)之前，沒什么人認為中西部是先鋒地區(qū)。而不是內戰(zhàn)改變了人們認為中西部是先鋒地區(qū)的看法。

Question 6 of 14

The word“bustling”in the passage is closest in meaning to

A.commercial

B.wealthy

C.lively

D.modern

正確答案：C

題目詳解

題型分類：詞匯題

選項分析：

原文為伊利諾斯州中央鐵路公司選擇Illinois的Manteno建造了車站，使這個小村莊從1854年一個沒有人煙的岔道口轉變?yōu)榱?860年將近有一千人的bustling小鎮(zhèn)，酒店、貯木場、谷物升降機、磨坊隨處可見。可以推測bustling與without a single house意思相反，與C選項lively：熱鬧的；生機勃勃的，符合。

A選項：商業(yè)的；貿易的。

B選項：富有的。

D選項：現代的。

帶入原文均不符合語境。

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