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1、 2015年1月31日托福考试阅读真题Obsecurelittle knownEncompassincludeProfoundintenseCompriseconsist ofReinforcestrengthObsoleteout of dateStationaryunmoveIrreversiblepermanentHencethereforeEnhancepromoteSubsequebtlater第一篇： 商业革命考生回忆：第一篇讲商业革命，就是说随着美国殖民地的建立，各个地区的工嗯呢该向贸易转化。讲到最近一千年商业革命的大背景，后面讲倒数第三个和第二个一千年，许多殖民地，例如埃及，都
2、是用于军事占领，但是随着贸易加强和王权削弱，国王逐渐变成只能控制贸易商品的种类，在之后就变得只能保护土地。总之就是说权利减弱。之后又说在美国，在贸易革命前，贸易权(大概是金钱)只掌握在少部分人手中，但是贸易革命以后让手工工人和一些专业人士也可以接触贸易。解析：这篇文章属于历史类文章。文章主题明确结构清晰，对背景的描述会比较详尽，不会出现因为背景知识的生疏而严重影响对于文章理解的情况。需要注意的是，必须提前对相关类型的TPO文章的生词熟悉，尽量减少生词恐惧带来的内耗。推荐TPO10的文章TPO 10：Seventeenth-Century European Economic Growth。相关背
3、景：Seventeenth-Century European Economic GrowthIn the late sixteenth century and into the seventeenth, Europe continued the growth that had lifted it out of the relatively less prosperous medieval period (from the mid 400s to the late 1400s). Among the key factors behind this growth were increased ag
4、ricultural productivity and an expansion of trade.Populations cannot grow unless the rural economy can produce enough additional food to feed more people. During the sixteenth century, farmers brought more land into cultivation at the expense of forests and fens (low-lying wetlands). Dutch land recl
5、amation in the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries provides the most spectacular example of the expansion of farmland: the Dutch reclaimed more than 36.000 acres from 1590 to 1615 alone.Much of the potential for European economic development lay in what at first glance would seem
6、to have been only sleepy villages. Such villages, however, generally lay in regions of relatively advanced agricultural production, permitting not only the survival of peasants but also the accumulation of an agricultural surplus for investment. They had access to urban merchants, markets, and trade
7、 routes.Increased agricultural production in turn facilitated rural industry, an intrinsic part of the expansion of industry. Woolens and textile manufacturers, in particular, utilized rural cottage (in-home) production, which took advantage of cheap and plentiful rural labor. In the German states,
8、the ravages of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) further moved textile production into the countryside. Members of poor peasant families spun or wove cloth and linens at home for scant remuneration in an attempt to supplement meager family income.More extended trading networks also helped develop Eur
9、opes economy in this period. English and Dutch ships carrying rye from the Baltic states reached Spain and Portugal. Population growth generated an expansion of small-scale manufacturing, particularly of handicrafts, textiles, and metal production in England, Flanders, parts of northern Italy, the s
10、outhwestern German states, and parts of Spain. Only iron smelting and mining required marshaling a significant amount of capital (wealth invested to create more wealth).The development of banking and other financial services contributed to the expansion of trade. By the middle of the sixteenth centu
11、ry, financiers and traders commonly accepted bills of exchange in place of gold or silver for other goods. Bills of exchange, which had their origins in medieval Italy, were promissory notes (written promises to pay a specified amount of money by a certain date) that could be sold to third parties.
12、In this way, they provided credit. At mid-century, an Antwerp financier only slightly exaggerated when he claimed, “0ne can no more trade without bills of exchange than sail without water. Merchants no longer had to carry gold and silver over long, dangerous journeys. An Amsterdam merchant purchasin
13、g soap from a merchant in Marseille could go to an exchanger and pay the exchanger the equivalent sum in guilders, the Dutch currency. The exchanger would then send a bill of exchange to a colleague in Marseille, authorizing the colleague to pay the Marseille merchant in the merchants own currency a
14、fter the actual exchange of goods had taken place.Bills of exchange contributed to the development of banks, as exchangers began to provide loans. Not until the eighteenth century, however, did such banks as the Bank of Amsterdam and the Bank of England begin to provide capital for business investme
15、nt. Their principal function was to provide funds for the state.The rapid expansion in international trade also benefitted from an infusion of capital, stemming largely from gold and silver brought by Spanish vessels from the Americas. This capital financed the production of goods, storage, trade, a
16、nd even credit across Europe and overseas. Moreover an increased credit supply was generated by investments and loans by bankers and wealthy merchants to states and by joint-stock partnershipsan English innovation (the first major company began in 1600). Unlike short-term financial cooperation between investors for a single commercial undertaking, joint-stock companies provided permanent fundi
