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  3. Most towns up to Elizabethan times were smaller than a modern village, and each of them was built a-round its weekly market wher

Most towns up to Elizabethan times were smaller than a modern village, and each of them was built a-round its weekly market wher

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问题     Most towns up to Elizabethan times were smaller than a modern village, and each of them was built a-round its weekly market where local produce was brought for sale and the town folks sold their work to the people from the countryside and provided them with refreshment for the day. Trade was virtually confined to that one day even in a town of a thousand or so people. On market days craftsmen put up their stalls in the open air whilst on one or two other days during the week the townsman would pack up his loaves, or nails, or cloth, and set out early to do a day’s trade in the market of an adjoining town where, however, he would be charged a heavy toll for the privilege and get a less favourable spot for his stand than the local craftsmen. Another chance for him to make a sale was to the congregation gathered for Sunday morning worship. Although no trade was allowed anywhere during the hours of the service (except at annual fair times), after church there would be some trade at the church door with departing country folk.
    The trade of markets was almost wholly concerned with exchanging the products of the nearby countryside and the goods sold in the market but particularly in food retail dealing was distrusted as a kind of profiteering. Even when there was enough trade being done to afford a livelihood to an enterprising man ready to buy wholesale and sell retail, town authorities were reluctant to allow it.
    Yet there were plainly people who were tempted to "forestall the market" by buying goods outside it, and to "regrate" them, that is to resell them, at a higher price. The constantly repeated rules against these practices and the endlessly recurring prosecutions mentioned in the records of all the larger towns prove that some well-informed and sharp-witted people did these things.
    Every town made its own laws and if it was big enough to have craft guilds, these associations would regulate the business of their members and tried to enforce a strict monopoly of their own trades. Yet while the guild leaders, as craftsmen, followed fiercely protectionist policies, at the same time, as leading townsmen, they wanted to see a big, busy market yielding a handsome revenue in various dues and tolls. Conflicts of interest led to endless, minute regulations, changeable, often inconsistent, frequently absurd. There was a time in the fourteenth century, for example, when London fishmongers were not allowed to handle any fish that had not already been exposed for sale for three days by the men who caught it.
Craftsmen might prefer to trade in their own town because
选项 A、there they could easily find good refreshment.
B、there they could work in the open air.
C、there they could start work very early.
D、there they could have the well-placed stalls.
答案D
解析 推理判断题。首段在提到商人到别的市场做生意的时候说，“然而，他们想在那里做生意的话，就要缴纳重税，并且得到的摊位也不如本地的商人的摊位好”。可见，这些限制是在别的市场所特有的，在本地的市场则不会有。由此可以推断，他们倾向于在本地做生意，是因为[D]“可以有好的摊位”。其他三项内容均不是在本地做生意所特有的好处。所以本题答案为[D]。
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考研英语一

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