首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Bringing cinnamon to Europe Cin
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Bringing cinnamon to Europe Cin
admin
2018-07-28
75
问题
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Bringing cinnamon to Europe
Cinnamon is a sweet, fragrant spice produced from the inner bark of trees of the genus Cinnamomum, which is native to the Indian sub-continent. It was known in biblical times, and is mentioned in several books of the Bible, both as an ingredient that was mixed with oils for anointing people’s bodies, and also as a token indicating friendship among lovers and friends. In ancient Rome, mourners attending funerals burnt cinnamon to create a pleasant scent. Most often, however, the spice found its primary use as an additive to food and drink. In the Middle Ages, Europeans who could afford the spice used it to flavour food, particularly meat, and to impress those around them with their ability to purchase an expensive condiment from the ’exotic’ East. At a banquet, a host would offer guests a plate with various spices piled upon it as a sign of the wealth at his or her disposal. Cinnamon was also reported to have health benefits, and was thought to cure various ailments, such as indigestion.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, the European middle classes began to desire the lifestyle of the elite, including their consumption of spices. This led to a growth in demand for cinnamon and other spices. At that time, cinnamon was transported by Arab merchants, who closely guarded the secret of the source of the spice from potential rivals. They took it from India, where it was grown, on camels via an overland route to the Mediterranean. Their journey ended when they reached Alexandria. European traders sailed there to purchase their supply of cinnamon, then brought it back to Venice. The spice then travelled from that great trading city to markets all around Europe. Because the overland trade route allowed for only small quantities of the spice to reach Europe, and because Venice had a virtual monopoly of the trade, the Venetians could set the price of cinnamon exorbitantly high. These prices, coupled with the increasing demand, spurred the search for new routes to Asia by Europeans eager to take part in the spice trade.
Seeking the high profits promised by the cinnamon market, Portuguese traders arrived on the island of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean toward the end of the 15th century. Before Europeans arrived on the island, the state had organized the cultivation of cinnamon. People belonging to the ethnic group called the Salagama would peel the bark off young shoots of the cinnamon plant in the rainy season, when the wet bark was more pliable. During the peeling process, they curled the bark into the ’stick’ shape still associated with the spice today. The Salagama then gave the finished product to the king as a form of tribute. When the Portuguese arrived, they needed to increase production significantly, and so enslaved many other members of the Ceylonese native population, forcing them to work in cinnamon harvesting. In 1518, the Portuguese built a fort on Ceylon, which enabled them to protect the island, so helping them to develop a monopoly in the cinnamon trade and generate very high profits. In the late 16th century, for example, they enjoyed a tenfold profit when shipping cinnamon over a journey of eight days from Ceylon to India.
When the Dutch arrived off the coast of southern Asia at the very beginning of the 17th century, they set their sights on displacing the Portuguese as kings of cinnamon. The Dutch allied themselves with Kandy, an inland kingdom on Ceylon. In return for payments of elephants and cinnamon, they protected the native king from the Portuguese. By 1640, the Dutch broke the 150-year Portuguese monopoly when they overran and occupied their factories. By 1658, they had permanently expelled the Portuguese from the island, thereby gaining control of the lucrative cinnamon trade.
In order to protect their hold on the market, the Dutch, like the Portuguese before them, treated the native inhabitants harshly. Because of the need to boost production and satisfy Europe’s ever-increasing appetite for cinnamon, the Dutch began to alter the harvesting practices of the Ceylonese. Over time, the supply of cinnamon trees on the island became nearly exhausted, due to systematic stripping of the bark. Eventually, the Dutch began cultivating their own cinnamon trees to supplement the diminishing number of wild trees available for use.
Then, in 1796, the English arrived on Ceylon, thereby displacing the Dutch from their control of the cinnamon monopoly. By the middle of the 19th century, production of cinnamon reached 1,000 tons a year, after a lower grade quality of the spice became acceptable to European tastes. By that time, cinnamon was being grown in other parts of the Indian Ocean region and in the West Indies, Brazil, and Guyana. Not only was a monopoly of cinnamon becoming impossible, but the spice trade overall was diminishing in economic potential, and was eventually superseded by the rise of trade in coffee, tea, chocolate, and sugar.
Questions 1-9
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-9 on your answer sheet.
The Early History of Cinnamon
Biblical times: added to 【R1】______
used to show 【R2】______between people
Ancient Rome: used for its sweet smell at 【R3】______
Middle Ages: added to food, especially meat
was an indication of a person’s 【R4】______
known as a treatment for 【R5】______and other
health problems
grown in 【R6】______
merchants used 【R7】______to bring it to
the Mediterranean
arrived in the Mediterranean at 【R8】______
traders took it to 【R9】______and sold it to
destinations around Europe
【R5】
选项
答案
indigestion
解析
题目:用作……和其他健康问题的治疗题干定位词treatment在原文中用动词cure来替代,health problems则用various ailments替代。因此答案为indigestion。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/V4NO777K
本试题收录于:
雅思阅读题库雅思(IELTS)分类
0
雅思阅读
雅思(IELTS)
相关试题推荐
Theword"civilization"wasjustcomingintouseinthe18thcentury,inFrenchandinEnglish,whenconservativemenofletters
POSTSCRIPT:LETTER::
Researchershavemadesignificanttechnologicalprogresstowardincreasingtheamountofplasticthatplantscangrowand
DIGRESSION:STATEMENT::
Wedidnotdiscoverthathisapprehensionconcerningourhypothesiswas______untilwellafterward,followingaseriesofrigorou
Researchershavenotedthatantsarrangetheirdeadusingthesameprinciplesthoughttoproducethemarkingsonanimals
Relativismamountstothedenialofanobjectiveworldaboutwhichtrueandfalsestatementscanbemade;thereisnoabs
Relativismamountstothedenialofanobjectiveworldaboutwhichtrueandfalsestatementscanbemade;thereisnoabs
随机试题
一肿瘤化疗患者,出现恶心、呕吐并伴有腹痛、腹泻,患者因此拒绝继续化疗。责任护士可采取的诸多措施中,不包括
根据我国《立法法》的规定,下列哪些机构可以向我国最高国家权力机关提出法律案?()
建筑物的经济寿命是指建筑物从建成之日起预期产生的收入等于其运营费用时的持续年数。()
决定市场结构的因素有()。
人力资本投资收益率变化规律不包括()。
全方位开发风险保障产品,仅靠保险业自身的_______还不够。因为这类产品往往保险面广、赔付金额多,巨大的经营风险令保险公司难以承受,大面积开发和经营这类产品显得_______。填入画横线部分最恰当的一项是:
在朱熹的教育阶段划分中,教之以洒扫、应对、进退之节,礼乐书数之文的是()。
儿童语害学习比较快是因为一般来说儿重的学习动机比成人明确而强烈。()
自治条例和单行条例的制定条件是
•Readtheextractbelowfromacompanychairman’sannualreporttoshareholders.•ChoosethebestwordtofilleachgapfromA
最新回复
(
0
)