托福閱讀真題Official 48 Passage 1（五）

托福閱讀真題Official 48 Passage 1（五）

Chinese Population Growth

Increases in population have usually been accompanied(indeed facilitated)by an increase in trade.In the Western experience,commerce provided the conditions that allowed industrialization to get started,which in turn led to growth in science,technology,industry,transport,communications,social change,and the like that we group under the broad term of“development.”However,the massive increase in population that in Europe was at first attributed to industrialization starting in the eighteenth century occurred also and at the same period in China,even though there was no comparable industrialization.

It is estimated that the Chinese population by 1600 was close to 150 million.The transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties(the seventeenth century)may have seen a decline,but from 1741 to 1851 the annual figures rose steadily and spectacularly,perhaps beginning with 143 million and ending with 432 million.If we accept these totals,we are confronted with a situation in which the Chinese population doubled in the 50 years from 1790 to 1840.If,with greater caution,we assume lower totals in the early eighteenth century and only 400 million in 1850,we still face a startling fact:something like a doubling of the vast Chinese population in the century before Western contact,foreign trade,and industrialization could have had much effect.

To explain this sudden increase we cannot point to factors constant in Chinese society but must find conditions or a combination of factors that were newly effective in this period.Among these is the almost complete internal peace maintained under Manchu rule during the eighteenth century.There was also an increase in foreign trade through Guangzhou(southern China)and some improvement of transportation within the empire.Control of disease,like the checking of smallpox by variolation may have been important.But of most critical importance was the food supply.

Confronted with a multitude of unreliable figures,economists have compared the population records with the aggregate data for cultivated land area and grain production in the six centuries since 1368.Assuming that China’s population in 1400 was about 80 million,the economist Dwight Perkins concludes that its growth to 700 million or more in the 1960s was made possible by a steady increase in the grain supply,which evidently grew five or six times between 1400 and 1800 and rose another 50 percent between 1800 and 1965.This increase of food supply was due perhaps half to the increase of cultivated area,particularly by migration and settlement in the central and western provinces,and half to greater productivity—the farmers’success in raising more crops per unit of land.

This technological advance took many forms:one was the continual introduction from the south of earlier-ripening varieties of rice,which made possible double-cropping(the production of two harvests per year from one field).New crops such as corn(maize)and sweet potatoes as well as peanuts and tobacco were introduced from the Americas.Corn,for instance,can be grown on the dry soil and marginal hill land of North China,where it is used for food,fuel,and fodder and provides something like one-seventh of the food energy available in the area.The sweet potato,growing in sandy soil and providing more food energy per unit of land than other crops,became the main food of the poor in much of the South China rice area.

Productivity in agriculture was also improved by capital investments,first of all in irrigation.From 1400 to 1900 the total of irrigated land seems to have increased almost three times.There was also a gain in farm tools,draft animals,and fertilizer,to say nothing of the population growth itself,which increased half again as fast as cultivated land area and so increased the ratio of human hands available per unit of land.Thus the rising population was fed by a more intensive agriculture,applying more labor and fertilizer to the land.

Question 9 of 14

What can be inferred from paragraph 5 about the introduction of corn and sweet potatoes in China?

A.These crops required much more care than other crops.

B.These crops were consumed in limited quantities.

C.These crops permitted an expansion of the area used for farming.

D.These crops became available all over China within a short period of time.

正確答案：C

題目詳解

題型分類：推論題

原文定位：Corn,for instance,can be grown on the dry soil and marginal hill land of North China,where it is used for food,fuel,and fodder and provides something like one-seventh of the food energy available in the area.The sweet potato,growing in sandy soil and providing more food energy per unit of land than other crops,became the main food of the poor in much of the South China rice area文中的be grown on the dry soil and marginal hill land表明土壤條件貧瘠，以及第二句中的growing in sandy soil也表明土壤條件不好，因此這兩句的意思都是兩種農(nóng)作物能在土壤條件差的地方耕種。

選項(xiàng)分析：

C選項(xiàng)這種作物能夠讓農(nóng)耕的地方的土地面積擴(kuò)張，符合原文定位句描述的在不好的條件下也能種植農(nóng)作物。

A選項(xiàng)比較關(guān)系不成立，虛假邏輯。

B選項(xiàng)consume無中生有。

D選項(xiàng)available，within a short period of time沒提及。

Question 10 of 14

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

A.proportion

B.availability

C.importance

D.cost

正確答案：A

題目詳解

題型分類：詞匯題

選項(xiàng)分析：

詞匯所在句so increased the ratio of human hands available per unit of land意思是“因此增加了單位土地上可用的人手”。ratio指土地面積：人手?jǐn)?shù)量的比例。

A選項(xiàng)：比例，此題原文不好推測(cè)，建議識(shí)記，選A。

B選項(xiàng)：可用性。

C選項(xiàng)：重要性。

D選項(xiàng)：費(fèi)用。

>> 雅思 托福 免費(fèi)測(cè)試、量身規(guī)劃、讓英語學(xué)習(xí)不再困難<<