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托福official50阅读第1篇American Railroads题目解析

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American Railroads
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In the United States, railroads spearheaded the second phase of the transportation revolution by overtaking the previous importance of canals. The mid-1800s saw a great expansion of American railroads. The major cities east of the Mississippi River were linked by a spiderweb of railroad tracks. Chicago's growth illustrates the impact of these rail links. In 1849 Chicago was a village of a few hundred people with virtually no rail service. By 1860 it had become a city of 100,000, served by eleven railroads. Farmers to the north and west of Chicago no longer had to ship their grain, livestock, and dairy products down the Mississippi River to New Orleans; they could now ship their products directly east. Chicago supplanted New Orleans as the interior of America's main commercial hub.

The east-west rail lines stimulated the settlement and agricultural development of the Midwest. By 1860 Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin had replaced Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York as the leading wheat-growing states. Enabling farmers to speed their products to the East, railroads increased the value of farmland and promoted additional settlement. In turn, population growth in agricultural areas triggered industrial development in cities such as Chicago, Davenport (Iowa), and Minneapolis, for the new settlers needed lumber for fences and houses and mills to grind wheat into flour.

Railroads also propelled the growth of small towns along their routes. The Illinois Central Railroad, which had more track than any other railroad in 1855, made money not only from its traffic but also from real estate speculation. Purchasing land for stations along its path, the Illinois Central then laid out towns around the stations. The selection of Manteno, Illinois, as a stop of the Illinois Central, for example, transformed the site from a crossroads without a single house in 1854 into a bustling town of nearly a thousand in 1860, replete with hotels, lumberyards, grain elevators, and gristmills. By the Civil War (1861-1865), few thought of the railroad-linked Midwest as a frontier region or viewed its inhabitants as pioneers.

As the nation's first big business, the railroads transformed the conduct of business. During the early 1830s, railroads, like canals, depended on financial aid from state governments. With the onset of economic depression in the late 1830s, however, state governments scrapped overly ambitious railroad projects. Convinced that railroads burdened them with high taxes and blasted hopes, voters turned against state aid, and in the early 1840s, several states amended their constitutions to bar state funding for railroads and canals. The federal government took up some of the slack, but federal aid did not provide a major stimulus to railroads before 1860. Rather, part of the burden of finance passed to city and county governments in agricultural areas that wanted to attract railroads. Such municipal governments, for example, often gave railroads rights-of-way, grants of land for stations, and public funds.

The dramatic expansion of the railroad network in the 1850s, however, strained the financing capacity of local governments and required a turn toward private investment, which had never been absent from the picture. Well aware of the economic benefits of railroads, individuals living near them had long purchased railroad stock issued by governments and had directly bought stock in railroads, often paying by contributing their labor to building the railroads. But the large railroads of the 1850s needed more capital than such small investors could generate. Gradually, the center of railroad financing shifted to New York City, and in fact, it was the railroad boom of the 1850s that helped make Wall Street in New York City the nation's greatest capital market. The stocks of all the leading railroads were traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during the 1850s. In addition, the growth of railroads turned New York City into the center of modern investment firms. The investment firms evaluated the stock of railroads in the smaller American cities and then found purchasers for these stocks in New York City, Philadelphia, Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. Controlling the flow of funds to railroads, the investment bankers began to exert influence over the railroads' internal affairs by supervising administrative reorganizations in times of trouble.

1.According to paragraph 1, what effect did the expansion of rail links have on Chicago?

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【题目翻译】 根据第1段,铁路连接的扩张对芝加哥产生了什么影响? A: 芝加哥成为11条新铁路的总部 B: 芝加哥成为密西西比河以东最重要的城市 C: 芝加哥从一个村庄变成了一个大城市 D: 芝加哥取代东部城市成为该地区农产品的主要买家 答案: C 【判定题型】:题目问的是文章中的具体细节信息,故根据题目问法可以判断本题为事实信息题。 【关键词定位】:本题为细节题,根据题干中的关键词“Chicago”,我们定位到第一段第四句话“Chicago's growth illustrates the impact of these rail links.” 这句话之后的内容都与芝加哥有关,主要描述铁路对芝加哥发展的影响,使芝加哥从一个小村庄变成了大城市,让芝加哥的农民能更快地将农产品运往东部。 【逻辑分析】:文中第一段表明芝加哥从一个村庄变成了一个大城市 【选项分析】: A选项:芝加哥成为了11条新铁路的总部。错误。因为根据选项中关键词“eleven new railroads”,我们定位到第一段第6句话“By 1860 it had become a city of 100,000, served by eleven railroads.”文章只是说到芝加哥在发展为大城市后,有11条铁路贯穿其中,但并没有说芝加哥是11条铁路的总部,所以A选项错误。 B选项:芝加哥成为了密西西比河东部最重要的城市。错误。根据选项中关键词“east of the Mississippi River”定位到第一段第3句“The major cities east of the Mississippi River were linked by a spider web of railroad tracks.”这句话说密西西比河以东的主要城市由蜘蛛网一样纷繁交错的铁轨连接起来,但是并没有提到芝加哥,所以B选项错。 D选项:芝加哥代替东部城市成为了农产品的主要购买地。错误,因为文中完全未提及相关信息,文中只提到铁路使芝加哥北部和西部的农民可以直接将他们的产品运送到东部。所以D选项错误。

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