|
17/5，读文章花时5分37秒，共花时13。2分
社会历史文章，问题解决型
第一段：提出问题：封建主财务紧张
第二、三段：提出几个解决方案，都是负评价
In the eighteenth century, Japan’s feudal overlords, from the shogun (shogun: n.<日>幕府时代的将军) to the humblest samurai (samurai: n.(封建时代的)日本武士,日本陆军军官), found themselves under financial stress. （现象：封建主财务紧张）In part, this stress can be attributed to the overlords’ failure to adjust to a rapidly expanding economy, but the stress was also due to factors beyond the overlords’ control. （接着解释原因：）Concentration of the samurai in castle-towns had acted as a stimulus to trade. Commercial efficiency, in turn, had put temptations in the way of buyers. Since most samurai had been reduced to idleness by years of peace, encouraged to engage in scholarship and martial exercises or to perform administrative tasks that took little time, it is not surprising that their tastes and habits grew expensive. Overlords’ income, despite the increase in rice production among their tenant farmers, failed to keep pace with their expenses. Although shortfalls in overlords’ income resulted almost as much from laxity among their tax collectors (the nearly inevitable outcome of hereditary office-holding) as from their higher standards of living, a misfortune like a fire or flood, bringing an increase in expenses or a drop in revenue, could put a domain in debt to the city rice-brokers who handled its finances. Once in debt, neither the individual samurai nor the shogun himself found it easy to recover.（三个原因：消费大，收入少，灾难）第一段：提出问题：封建主财务紧张，并解释原因
It was difficult for individual samurai overlords to increase their income because the amount of rice that farmers could be made to pay in taxes was not unlimited, and since the income of Japan’s central government consisted in part of taxes collected by the shogun from his huge domain, the government too was constrained. Therefore, the Tokugawa shoguns began to look to other sources for revenue. Cash profits from government-owned mines were already on the decline because the most easily worked deposits of silver and gold had been exhausted, although debasement of the coinage had compensated for the loss. Opening up new farmland was a possibility, but most of what was suitable had already been exploited and further reclamation was technically unfeasible. Direct taxation of the samurai themselves would be politically dangerous. This left the shoguns only commerce as a potential source of government income.第二段：解决方案，增加收入、采矿、开田、直接征税，都是负评价
Most of the country’s wealth, or so it seemed, was finding its way into the hands of city merchants. It appeared reasonable that they should contribute part of that revenue to ease the shogun’s burden of financing the state. A means of obtaining such revenue was soon found by levying （to officially say that people must pay a tax or charge）forced loans, known as goyo-kin; although these were not taxes in the strict sense, since they were irregular in timing and arbitrary in amount, they were high in yield. Unfortunately, they pushed up prices. Thus, regrettably, the Tokugawa shoguns’ search for solvency for the government made it increasingly difficult for individual Japanese who lived on fixed stipends to make ends meet.
第三段：另一个解决方案：用商人要，抬高了价格，失败。
7. Which of the following could best be substituted for the word “This” in line 47 without changing the meaning of the passage?细节题，这题我做错了，选了A，花了57秒，比较A和D，
(A) The search of Japan’s Tokugawa shoguns for solvency
(B) The importance of commerce in feudal Japan
(C) The unfairness of the tax structure in eighteenth century Japan
(D) The difficulty of increasing government income by other means（D）
(E) The difficulty experienced by both individual samurai and the shogun himself in extricating themselves from debt
D为何比A好呢 谢谢 | 
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2004-6-4 05:57:00
楼主
