Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)

　　Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1.

　　For questions 1-7, mark

　　Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;

　　N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;

　　NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.

　　For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.

　　The World in a Glass: Six Drinks That Changed History

　　Tom Standage urges drinkers to savor the history of their favorite beverages along with the taste.

　　The author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses (Walker & Company, June 2005), Standage lauds the libations that have helped shape our world from the Stone Age to the present day.

　　"The important drinks are still drinks that we enjoy today," said Standage, a technology editor at the London-based magazine the Economist. "They are relics (纪念物)of different historical periods still found in our kitchens."

　　Take the six-pack, whose contents first fizzed at the dawn of civilization.

　　Beer

　　The ancient Sumerians, who built advanced city-states in the area of present-day lraq, began fermenting(发酵)beer from barley at least 6,000 years ago.

　　"When people started agriculture the first crops they produced were barley or wheat. You consume those crops as bread and as beer," Standage noted. "It's the drink associated with the dawn of civilization. It's as simple as that."

　　Beer was popular with the masses from the beginning.

　　"Beer would have been something that a common person could have had in the house and made whenever they wanted," said Linda Bisson, a microbiologist at the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis.

　　"The guys who built the pyramids were paid in beer and bread," Standage added. "It was the defining drink of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Everybody drank it. Today it's the drink of the working man, and it was then as well."

　　Wine

　　Wine may be as old or older than beer—though no one can be certain.

　　Paleolithic humans probably sampled the first "wine" as the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes. But producing and storing wine proved difficult for early cultures.

　　"To make wine you have to have fresh grapes," said Bisson, the UC Davis microbiologist. "for beer you can just store grain and add water to process it at any time."

　　Making wine also demanded pottery that could preserve the precious liquid.

　　"Wine may be easier to make [than beer], but it's harder to store," Bisson added. "For most ancient cultures it would have been hard to catch [fermenting grape juice] as wine on its way to [becoming] vinegar."

　　Such caveats and the expense of producing wine helped the beverage quickly gain more cachet(威望)than beer. Wine was originally associated with social elites and religious activities.

　　Wine snobbery may be nearly as old as wine itself. Greeks and Romans produced many grades of wine for various social classes.

　　The quest for quality became an economic engine and later drove cultural expansion.

　　"Once you had regions [like Greece and Rome] that could distinguish themselves as making good stuff, it gave them an economic boost," Bisson said. "Beer just wasn't as special."

　　Spirits

　　Hard liquor, particularly brandy and rum, placated (安抚)sailors during the long sea voyages of the Age of Exploration, when European powers plied the seas during the 15th, 16th, and early 17th centuries.

　　Rum played a crucial part of the triangular trade between Britain, Africa, and the North American colonies that once dominated the Atlantic economy.

　　Standage also suggests that rum may have been more responsible than tea for the independence movement in Britain's American colonies.

　　"Distilling molasses for rum was very important to the New England economy," he explained. "When the British tried to tax molasses it struck at the heart of the economy. The idea of 'no taxation without representation' originated with molasses and sugar. Only at the end did it refer to tea."

　　Great Britain's longtime superiority at sea may also owe a debt to its navy's drink of rum-based choice, grog(掺水烈酒),which was made a compulsory beverage for sailors in the late 18th century.

　　"They would make grog with rum, water, and lemon or lime juice," Standage said. "This improved the taste but also reduced illness and scurvy. Fleet physicians thought that this had doubled the efficiency of the fleet."

　　Coffee

　　The story of modern coffee starts in the Arabian Peninsula, where roasted beans were first brewed around A.D. 1000. Sometime around the 15th century, coffee spread throughout the Arab world.

　　"In the Arab world, coffee rose as an alternative to alcohol, and coffeehouses as alternatives to taverns(酒馆)—both of which are banned by Islam," Standage said.

　　When coffee arrived in Europe it was similarly hailed as an "anti-alcohol" that was quite welcome during the Age of Reason in the 18th century.

　　"Just at the point when the Enlightenment is getting going, here's a drink that sharpens the mind," Standage said. "The coffeehouse is the perfect venue(聚会地点)to get together and exchange ideas and information. The French Revolution started in a coffeehouse."

　　Coffee also fuelled commerce and had strong links to the rituals of business that remain to the present day. Lloyds of London and the London Stock Exchange were both originally coffeehouses.

　　Tea

　　Tea became a daily drink in China around the third century A.D.

　　Standage says tea played a leading role in the expansion of imperial and industrial might in Great Britain many centuries later. During the 19th century, the East India Company enjoyed a monopoly on tea exports from China.

　　"Englishmen around the world could drink tea, whether they were a colonial administrator in India or a London businessman," Standage said. "The sun never set on the British Empire—which meant that it was always teatime somewhere."

　　As the Industrial Revolution of 18th and 19th centuries gained steam, tea provided some of the fuel. Factory workers stayed alert during long, monotonous shifts thanks to welcome tea breaks.

　　The beverage also had unintended health benefits for rapidly growing urban areas. "When you start packing people together in cities it's helpful to have a water-purification technology like tea," which was brewed with boiling water, Standage explained.

　　Coca-cola

　　In 1886 pharmacist John Stith Pemberton sold about nine Coca-colas a day.

　　Today his soft drink is one of the world's most valuable brands-sold in more countries than the United Nations has members.

　　"It may be the second most widely understood phrase in the world after 'OK'," Standage said.

　　The drink has become a symbol of the United States—love it or hate it. Standage notes that East Germans quickly reached for Cokes when the Berlin Wall fell, while Thai Muslims poured it out into the streets to show disdain for the U.S. in the days leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

　　"Coca-cola encapsulates what happened in the 20th century: the rise of consumer capitalism and the emergence of America as a superpower," Standage said. "It's globalization in a bottle."

　　While Coke may not always produce a smile, a survey by the Economist magazine (Standage's employer), suggests that the soft drink's presence is a great indicator of happy citizens. When countries were polled for happiness, as defined by a United Nations index, high scores correlated with sales of Coca-Cola.

　　"It's not because [Coke] makes people happy, but because [its] sales happen in the dynamic free-market economies that tend to produce happy people," Standage said.

　　1. The passage gives a brief description of the content of a new book, A History of the World in 6 Glasses.

　　2. The ancient Sumerians began fermenting beer from barley at least 6,000 years ago.

　　3. Today beer is the drink of the working man, which was not the case before.

　　4. Greeks probably sampled the first "wine" as the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes.

　　5. The caveats and the expense of producing wine helped it quickly gain more cachet than beer.

　　6. Standage suggests that tea may have been more responsible than rum for the independence movement in Britain's American colonies.

　　7. Coffee is the best drink according to Standage.

　　8. Sometime around the 15th century coffee spread throughout ________.

　　9. During the 19th century, the monopoly on tea exports from China is ________.

　　10. Coca-Cola has become a symbol of ________.

　　Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning)

　　1. Y 本文的六个小标题正是对书名中“6 Glasess”的具体阐释，由此可知题干表述正确。

　　2. Y 根据题干中的fermenting beer推知答案可能在小标题beer下。再根据The ancient Sumerians定位原文，从首句即可知题干表述正确。

　　3. N 根据上题的解题思路，继续留意讲Beer的那些段落，在末尾发现...and it was then as well，可知题干表述错误。

　　4. N 由题干中的wine推知答案在同名小标题下的段落中。其中第二段明确指出最初品尝红酒的是Paleolithic humans，可知题干表述错误。

　　5. Y 题干中既出现了beer又出现了wine，两事物的比较一般在介绍完两事物后给出，本文讲出beer再讲wine，故先在标题Wine下的段落寻找答案。定位发现题干信息与原文相符，是正确的。阅读中要留心事物间的比较。

　　6. N 本题是对tea和rum的一种比较，rum属于spirits，所以答案在Spirits或Tea标题下的内容中。根据题干中的Britain's American colonies定位原文发现Spirits下第三段明确提到Standage also suggests that rum may have been more responsible than tea...，可知题干表述错误。

　　7. NG 根据题干中的信息词coffee定位原文有关coffee的段落，发现Standage并未做出与题干所述相关的评论。

　　8. the Arab world。根据题干中的信息词around the 15th century定位原文有关coffee的段落，可找到答案。

　　9. the East India Company。根据题干中的信息词During the 19th century和China定位原文有关tea的段落，可在其下第二段末句找到答案。

　　10. the United States。根据题干中的信息词Coca-Cola和symbol定位原文有关Coca-Cola的段落，可在其下第四段首句找到答案。