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OFFICIAL25 Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points. The loss of power and prestige of Italian cities by the sixteenth century is clearly seen in the decline of Venetian shipping.

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The Decline of Venetian Shipping
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In the late thirteenth century, northern Italian cities such as Genoa, Florence, and Venice began an economic resurgence that made them into the most important economic centers of Europe. By the seventeenth century, however, other European powers had taken over, as the Italian cities lost much of their economic might.



This decline can be seen clearly in the changes that affected Venetian shipping and trade.
First, Venic’s intermediary functions in the Adriatic Sea, where it had dominated the business of shipping for other parties, were lost to direct trading. In the fifteenth century there was little problem recruiting sailors to row the galleys (large ships propelled by oars): guilds (business associations) were required to provide rowers, and through a draft system free citizens served compulsorily when called for. In the early sixteenth century the shortage of rowers was not serious because the demand for galleys was limited by a move to round ships (round-hulled ships with more cargo space), with required fewer rowers. But the shortage of crews proved to be a greater and greater problem, despite continuous appeal to Venic’s tradition of maritime greatness. Even though sailors’ wages doubled among the northern Italian cities from 1550 to 1590, this did not elicit an increased supply.



The problem in shipping extended to the Arsenale, Venice’s huge and powerful shipyard. Timber ran short, and it was necessary to procure it from farther and farther away. In ancient Roman times, the Italian peninsula had great forest of fir preferred for warships, but scarcity was apparent as early as the early fourteenth century. Arsenale officers first brought timber from the foothills of the Alps, then from north toward Trieste, and finally from across the Adriatic. Private shipbuilders were required to buy their oak abroad. As the costs of shipbuilding rose, Venice clung to its outdated standard while the Dutch were innovation in the lighter and more easily handled ships.

The step from buying foreign timber to buying foreign ships was regarded as a short one, especially when complaints were heard in the latter sixteenth century that the standards and traditions of the Arsenale were running down. Work was stretched out and done poorly. Older workers had been allowed to stop work a half hour before the regular time, and in 1601 younger works left with them. Merchants complained that the privileges reserved for Venetian-built and owned ships were first extended to those Venetians who bought ships from abroad and then to foreign-built and owned vessels. Historian Frederic Lane observes that after the loss of ships in battle in the late sixteenth century, the shipbuilding industry no longer had the capacity to recover that it had displayed at the start of the century.

The conventional explanation for the loss of Venetian dominance in trade is establishment of the Portuguese direct sea route to the East, replacing the overland Silk Road from the Black sea and the highly profitable Indian Ocean-caravan-eastern Mediterranean route to Venice. The Portuguese Vasco da Gama’s Voyage around southern Africa to India took place at the end of the fifteenth century, and by 1502 the trans- Abrabian caravan route had been cut off by political unrest.

The Venetian Council finally allowed round ships to enter the trade that was previously reserved for merchant galleys, thus reducing transport cost by one third. Prices of spices delivered by ship from the eastern Mediterranean came to equal those of spices transported by Portuguese vessels, but the increase in quantity with both routes in operation drove the price far down. Gradually, Venice’s role as a storage and distribution center for spices and silk, dyes cotton, and gold decayed, and by the early seventeenth century Venice had lost its monopoly in markets such as France and southern Germany.

Venetian shipping had started to decline from about 1530-before the entry into the Mediterranean of large volumes of Dutch and British shipping-and was clearly outclassed by the end of the century. A contemporary of Shakespeare (1564-1616) observed that the productivity of Italian shipping had declined, compared with that of the British, because of conservatism and loss of expertise. Moreover, Italian sailors were deserting and emigrating, and captains, no longer recruited from the ranks of nobles, were weak on navigations.

14.Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points. The loss of power and prestige of Italian cities by the sixteenth century is clearly seen in the decline of Venetian shipping.

A.Venetian ships were famous for carrying large cargoes of spices and luxury goods around the world in fast, oar-driven galleys.

B.Venetian round ships bringing spices and silk from the East helped drive prices down so that ordinary people could afford to buy them

C.A shortage of timber for building the traditional galleys and a lack of sailors to row them meant a loss of Venetian shipping business.

D.Venice failed to keep up with improvement in ship design, and the cost of shipbuilding rose a quality and efficiency declined.

E.The Venetian Council made sure that Venetian-built and owned ships kept special privileges in transporting luxury goods in and out of Venice.

F.The Portuguese direct sea route to the East adversely affected Venetian trade, and Venice fell behind the Dutch and the British in the quality of their ships and sailing skills.

你的答案:
正确答案:CDF
题目解析:
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CDF 原文的主旨从来都没有在 luxury goods 上,于是 Venetian ships 选项错; A shortage 选项对应原文第二段的后半部分和第三段的前半部分,正确. The Venetian Council 选项错,原因是在第4段写了Merchants complained that the privileges reserved for Venetian-built and owned ships were first extended to those Venetians who bought ships from abroad and then to foreign-built and owned vessels.,与本选项内容相反,所以错。 Venetian round ships 也不是文章的主旨,此外,ordinary people 买得起原文也没说,所以这个选项错. Venice failed 选项对应原文第三段的头尾和第四段的开头,正确. The Portuguese 选项对应原文最后一段和倒数第二段的后半部分,正确.

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