Official 48 Passage 1

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Chinese Population Growth

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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.

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Over the centuries, China has experienced an extraordinary increase in its population.

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正确答案: A D E
  • A.
    Understanding the exceptional increase in population in China requires giving up commonly held assumptions relative to the phenomenon of population growth.
  • B.
    The economist Dwight Perkins applied a particular statistical method to determine the increase in China's population.
  • C.
    The sudden population growth in China started in its northern and southern provinces, and it spread rapidly to the central and western areas of the country.
  • D.
    Improved transportation management and enhanced disease control contributed to China's population explosion.
  • E.
    The increase in China's food supply, which affected population growth, was the result of technological developments in agriculture and capital investment.
  • F.
    A steady increase in foreigh trade since the 1400s provided the conditions necessary for large-scale agricultural development.

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  • 原文
  • 译文
  • Increases in population have usually been accompanied (indeed facilitated) by an increase in trade. In the Western experience, commerce provided the conditions that allowed industrialization to get started, which in turn led to growth in science, technology, industry, transport, communications, social change, and the like that we group under the broad term of "development". However, the massive increase in population that in Europe was at first attributed to industrialization starting in the eighteenth century occurred also and at the same period in China, even though there was no comparable industrialization.



    It is estimated that the Chinese population by 1600 was close to 150 million. The transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties (the seventeenth century) may have seen a decline, but from 1741 to 1851 the annual figures rose steadily and spectacularly, perhaps beginning with 143 million and ending with 432 million. If we accept these totals, we are confronted with a situation in which the Chinese population doubled in the 50 years from 1790 to 1840. If, with greater caution, we assume lower totals in the early eighteenth century and only 400 million in 1850, we still face a startling fact: something like a doubling of the vast Chinese population in the century before Western contact, foreign trade, and industrialization could have had much effect.



    To explain this sudden increase we cannot point to factors constant in Chinese society but must find conditions or a combination of factors that were newly effective in this period. Among these is the almost complete internal peace maintained under Manchu rule during the eighteenth century. There was also an increase in foreign trade through Guangzhou (southern China) and some improvement of transportation within the empire. Control of disease, like the checking of smallpox by variolation may have been important. But of most critical importance was the food supply.



    Confronted with a multitude of unreliable figures, economists have compared the population records with the aggregate data for cultivated land area and grain production in the six centuries since 1368. Assuming that China's population in 1400 was about 80 million, the economist Dwight Perkins concludes that its growth to 700 million or more in the 1960s was made possible by a steady increase in the grain supply, which evidently grew five or six times between 1400 and 1800 and rose another 50 percent between 1800 and 1965. This increase of food supply was due perhaps half to the increase of cultivated area, particularly by migration and settlement in the central and western provinces, and half to greater productivity-the farmers' success in raising more crops per unit of land.



    This technological advance took many forms: one was the continual introduction from the south of earlier-ripening varieties of rice, which made possible double-cropping (the production of two harvests per year from one field). New crops such as corn (maize) and sweet potatoes as well as peanuts and tobacco were introduced from the Americas. Corn, for instance, can be grown on the dry soil and marginal hill land of North China, where it is used for food, fuel, and fodder and provides something like one-seventh of the food energy available in the area. The sweet potato, growing in sandy soil and providing more food energy per unit of land than other crops, became the main food of the poor in much of the South China rice area.



    Productivity in agriculture was also improved by capital investments, first of all in irrigation. From 1400 to 1900 the total of irrigated land seems to have increased almost three times. There was also a gain in farm tools, draft animals, and fertilizer, to say nothing of the population growth itself, which increased half again as fast as cultivated land area and so increased the ratio of human hands available per unit of land. Thus the rising population was fed by a more intensive agriculture, applying more labor and fertilizer to the land.


  • 人口的增加通常伴随着(事实上是被促进)贸易的增长。根据西方的经验,商业为工业化的开始提供了条件,这反过来又导致科学、技术、工业、交通、通信、社会变化以及我们广泛定义为发展的那些群体的增长。然而,起初欧洲人口的大规模增长是由十八世纪开始的工业化引起的,在同一时期,工业化也在中国发生,虽然(中国的)工业化并不能(和欧洲)相比。

    据估计,到1600年为止,中国人口接近1亿5000万。明清的过渡时期(十七世纪)可能经历了(人口)下滑,但从1741到1851年,年度数字有着明显地稳步上升,可能是从1亿4300万上升到4亿3200万。如果我们接受这些总数,我们将面临一个情况:中国人口从1790到1840年的50年间翻了一番。如果更谨慎些,我们假定在18世纪初的总数更低,在1850年只有4亿,我们仍然面临着一个令人吃惊的事实:中国人口的翻倍增长发生在和西方接触之前,也发生在对外贸易和工业化可以起到作用之前。

    解释这种(人口的)突然增加,我们不能(将原因)指向在中国社会中恒定的因素,而是必须找到在这一时期以新的形势起到作用的条件或组合因素。其中一个就是:在满族统治下,几乎完全的内部和平。广州(华南)的对外贸易有所增加,并在帝国内进行了一些改进。控制疾病也可能非常重要(如通过天花接种来进行天花检查。但最重要的还是食品供应。

    面对大量的不可靠的数据,经济学家们将从1368年开始的6世纪的人口数据,与耕地面积和粮食生产总量的综合数据进行了比较。假设中国的人口在1400年是8000万左右,经济学家帕金斯德怀特得出结论,在20世纪60年代,由于粮食供应的稳定增长(在1400年和1800年之前增长了5.6倍,并且在1800年到1965年又增长了50%),中国人口增长到7亿是可能的。粮食供应的增加可能是一般是因为耕地面积增加,特别是在中西部省份的移民和定居;一半是因为增长的生产力(农民成功地提高每单位的土地上种植更多的庄稼)。

    这一技术进步有许多形式:一个是从南方不断引进从早熟的水稻品种,这使得双季种植(在一块地上每年生产两稻)变得可能的。从美洲引进新品种的农作物,如玉米、甘薯、花生和烟草等。例如,玉米可以生长在中国北方的干旱土壤和贫瘠的土地上,在那里它们被用于食品、燃料和饲料,并为该地区提供了七分之一的食物能源。甘薯,在沙质土壤中生长,比其他作物提供更多的粮食能量,成为南方大部分地区的主要粮食作物。

    在农业生产中,生产力也得到了改善,首先是灌溉。从1400到1900,灌溉土地的总量似乎已经增加了近三倍。农业工具、动物和肥料的收获也有了收获,对人口增长本身来说没有什么,这也增加了一半的耕地面积,从而增加了人均土地的比例。因此,不断上升的人口被一个更为密集的农业所喂养,在土地上应用更多的劳动力和肥料。
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    解析

    题型分类:总结题

    文章结构分析:

    第一段:工业发展带来欧洲人口增长,虽然中国工业发展相对弱,但人口增长的时期跟欧洲差不多

    第二段:进一步拓展中国人口增长的案例,结论是在西方影响以前,中国人口增长就产生了巨大影响

    第三段:影响人口增加的因素,和平是一个原因,然后外贸、交通、健康环境都是原因,但最主要的是食物供应;

    第四段:粮食供应的原因一半来自耕地增加、一半来自生产力

    第五段:食物供给技术进步的具体体现;

    第六段:食物供给增长的另一大因素--资本投入的增加。

    选项分析:

    Understanding选项:对文章第一段的概括

    Improved transportation选项:对文章第三段的概括

    The increase选项:对文章第五段和第六段的概括

    The economist选项:对应第三段内容,但原文并未提及a particular statistical method”和“determine the increase in China’s population”;

    The sudden选项:选项所提到的内容在文中没有涉及

    A steady increase选项:选项提到人口的增长是由于对外贸易,但是原文第一段和第二段说的是贸易增长是西方人口增长的主要原因并不是中国人口增长的原因,错误

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