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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.
第一篇：托福阅读TPO50题目：
Question 1 of 14
According to paragraph 1, what effect did the expansion of rail links have on Chicago?
A. Chicago became the headquarters for eleven new railroads.
B. Chicago became the most important city east of the Mississippi River.
C. Chicago was transformed from a village into a large city.
D. Chicago replaced eastern cities as the main buyer of farm products from the region.
Question 2 of 14
Paragraph 2 supports the idea that Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin were able to become the leading wheat-growing states by 1860 in large part because
A. by 1860 there were more railroads in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin than in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
B. the expansion of east-west rail lines made transporting Midwestern products to East Coast markets relatively fast and easy.
C. by 1860 states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York had become more interested in industrial development than in agriculture.
D. most of the farmers who had grown wheat in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or New York resettled in the Midwest after the expansion of east-west rail lines.
Question 3 of 14
The word "promoted" in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. encouraged.
B. controlled.
C. promised.
D. predicted.
Question 4 of 14
According to paragraph 2, one effect of the increased agricultural development in the Midwest was to
A. slow the rate at which population grew in many Midwestern cities.
B. increase the demand for industrial products from Midwestern cities.
C. encourage the extension of east-west rail lines to the Midwest.
D. reduce the pressure on Midwestern farmers to get their products to market faster.
Question 5 of 14
The author mentions "Manteno, Illinois" in order to
A. give an example of how railroads decided which small towns would be selected for stations.
B. illustrate the power of railroads to determine where towns would come into existence.
C. explain how some railroads were able to make more money from real estate speculation than from railroad traffic.
D. show how people's view of the Midwest as a frontier region had changed by the Civil War.
Question 6 of 14
The word "bustling" in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. commercial.
B. wealthy.
C. lively.
D. modern.
Question 7 of 14
The word "onset" in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. possibility.
B. fear.
C. worsening.
D. start.
Question 8 of 14
According to paragraph 4, how were railroads affected by the economic depression in the late 1830s?
A. They lost important funding from state governments.
B. They began to realize that some of their projects were overly ambitious.
C. They had to compete with canals for government support.
D. They emerged as the nation's biggest business.
Question 9 of 14
Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.
A. Private investment in railroads began in the 1850s following the dramatic expansion of the railroad network, which had been financed by local governments.
B. Railroads' relations with local governments became strained in the 1850s, when railroads turned to private investors for financing to expand their capacity.
C. Local governments' limited capacity to finance railroad expansion was a long-standing problem that railroads solved in the 1850s by turning toward private investment.
D. When local governments could not adequately finance the railroads' dramatic expansion in the 1850s, private investment became increasingly important.
Question 10 of 14
Paragraph 5 supports which of the following ideas about people who held railroad stock?
A. Many of them were not particularly wealthy.
B. Many of them overestimated the economic benefits of railroads.
C. Most of them bought their stock for less than it was worth.
D. Most of them had been employed by a railroad.
Question 11 of 14
According to paragraph 5, investment bankers were involved in all of the following EXCEPT
A. controlling the distribution of funds to railroads.
B. finding national and international buyers of railroad stock.
C. overseeing administrative changes of railroads when needed.
D. persuading the federal government to reinvest in railroads.
Question 12 of 14
The word "flow" in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. promise.
B. growth.
C. movement.
D. source.
Question 13 of 14
Look at the four squares [[span class='strong-insert']][[/span]] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Where would the sentence best fit? Click on a square [[span class='strong-insert']][[/span]] to add the sentence to the passage .
Indeed, the network became so dense that by the 1860s the United States had more miles of railroad tracks than did all the rest of the world.
Question 14 of 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. Drag your answer choices to the spaces where they belong. To remove an answer choice, click on it To review the passage, click VIEW TEXT. The expansion of railroads in the mid-1800s played an important role in the development of the American Midwest .
A.Increased rail line between the East and the Midwest resulted in the rapid rise of major Midwestern cities such as Chicago, as well as in the growth of small towns along railroad routes.
B.Real estate speculation by railroads in the 1850s drove up the value of farmland and encouraged many Midwestern farmers to sell their land and make a new life in the cities.
C.Both canals and railroads fell out of public favor in the early 1840s, but by the mid-1850s the economic benefits of railroads had once again become generally recognized.
D.Once Chicago became a major commercial hub with direct rail connections to New Orleans and the East, Midwestern farmers were no longer limited to selling most of their products locally.
E.State government financing of railroads largely ended in the 1830s and was replaced by a combination of local and federal government support and money from private investors.
F.In the 1850s railroads turned to investment banks in New York City for capital to expand and by doing so, helped establish the city as the main financial center in the United States.
The Achievement of Brazilian Independence
巴西独立的实现
In contrast to the political anarchy, economic dislocation, and military destruction in Spanish America, Brazil's drive toward independence from Portugal proceeded as a relatively bloodless transition between 1808 and 1822. The idea of Brazilian independence first arose in the late eighteenth century as a Brazilian reaction to the Portuguese policy of tightening political and economic control over the colony in the interests of the mother country. The first significant conspiracy against Portuguese rule was organized from 1788-1799 in the province of Minas Gerais, where rigid governmental control over the production and prices of gold and diamonds, as well as heavy taxes, caused much discontent. But this conspiracy never went beyond the stage of discussion and was easily discovered and crushed. Other conspiracies in the late eighteenth century as well as a brief revolt in 1817 reflected the influence of republican ideas over sections of the elite and even the lower strata of urban society. All proved abortive or were soon crushed. Were it not for an accident of European history, the independence of Brazil might have been long delayed.
The French invasion of Portugal in 1807 followed by the flight of the Portuguese court (sovereign and government officers) to Rio de Janeiro brought large benefits to Brazil. Indeed, the transfer of the court in effect signified achievement of Brazilian independence. The Portuguese prince and future King Joao VI opened Brazil's ports to the trade of friendly nations, permitted the rise of local industries, and founded the Bank of Brazil. In 1815 he elevated Brazil to the legal status of a kingdom coequal with Portugal. ln one sense, however, Brazil's new status signified the substitution of one dependence for another. Freed from Portuguese control, Brazil came under the economic dominance of England, which obtained major tariff concessions and other privileges by the Strangford Treaty of 1810 between Portugal and Great Britain. The treaty provided for the importation of British manufactures into Brazil and the export of Brazilian agricultural produce to Great Britain. One result was an influx of cheap machine-made goods that swamped the handicrafts industry of the country.
Brazilian elites took satisfaction in Brazil's new role and the growth of educational, cultural, and economic opportunities for their class. But the feeling was mixed with resentment toward the thousands of Portuguese courtiers (officials) and hangers-on who came with the court and who competed with Brazilians for jobs and favors. Thus, the change in the status of Brazil sharpened the conflict between Portuguese elites born in Brazil and elites born in Portugal and loyal to the Portuguese crown.
The event that precipitated the break with the mother country was the revolution of 1820 in Portugal. The Portuguese revolutionaries framed a liberal constitution for the kingdom, but they were conservative or reactionary in relation to Brazil. They demanded the immediate return of King Joao to Lisbon, an end to the system of dual monarchy that he had devised, and the restoration of the Portuguese commercial monopoly. Timid and vacillating, King Joao did not know which way to turn. Under the pressure of his courtiers, who hungered to return to Portugal and their lost estates, he finally approved the new constitution and sailed for Portugal. He left behind him, however, his son and heir, Pedro, and in a private letter advised him that in the event the Brazilians should demand independence, he should assume leadership of the movement and set the crown of Brazil on his head.
Soon it became clear that the Portuguese parliament intended to set the clock back by abrogating all the liberties and concessions won by Brazil since 1808. One of its decrees insisted on the immediate return of Pedro from Brazil. The pace of events moved more rapidly in 1822. On January 9, urged on by Brazilian advisers who perceived a golden opportunity to make an orderly transition to independence without the intervention of the masses, Pedro refused an order from the parliament to return to Portugal, saying famously, "l remain." On September 7, regarded by all Brazilians as Independence Day, he issued the even more celebrated proclamation, "Independence or death!" In December 1822, having overcome slight resistance by Portuguese troops, Dom Pedro was formally proclaimed constitutional Emperor of Brazil.
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