如果同学们在
Siam, 1851 – 1910
In the late nineteenth century, political and social changes were occurring rapidly in Siam (now Thailand). The old ruling families were being displaced by an evolving centralized government. These families were pensioned off (given a sum of money to live on) or simply had their revenues taken away or restricted; their sons were enticed away to schools for district officers, later to be posted in some faraway province; and the old patron-client relations that had bound together local societies simply disintegrated. Local rulers could no longer protect their relatives and attendants in legal cases, and with the ending in 1905 of the practice of forcing peasant farmers to work part-time for local rulers, the rulers no longer had a regular base for relations with rural populations. The old local ruling families, then, were severed from their traditional social context.
The same situation viewed from the perspective of the rural population is even more complex. According to the government’s first census of the rural population, taken in 1905, there were about thirty thousand villages in Siam. This was probably a large increase over the figure even two or three decades earlier, during the late 1800s. It is difficult to imagine it now, but Siam’s Central Plain in the late 1800s was nowhere near as densely settled as it is today. There were still forests closely surrounding Bangkok into the last half of the nineteenth century, and even at century’s end there were wild elephants and tigers roaming the countryside only twenty or thirty miles away.
Much population movement involved the opening up of new lands for rice cultivation. Two things made this possible and encouraged it to happen. First, the opening of the kingdom to the full force of international trade by the Bowring Treaty (1855) rapidly encouraged economic specialization in the growing of rice, mainly to feed the rice-deficient portions of Asia (India and China in particular). The average annual volume of rice exported from Siam grew from under 60 million kilograms per year in the late 1850s to more than 660 million kilograms per year at the turn of the century; and over the same period the average price per kilogram doubled. During the same period, the area planted in rice increased from about 230,000 acres to more than350,000 acres. This growth was achieve as the result of the collective decisions of thousands of peasants families to expand the amount of land they cultivated, clear and plant new land, or adopt more intensive methods of agriculture.
They were able to do so because of our second consideration. They were relatively freer than they had been half a century earlier. Over the course of the Fifth Reign (1868 – 1910), the ties that bound rural people to the aristocracy and local ruling elites were greatly reduced. Peasants now paid a tax on individuals instead of being required to render labor service to the government. Under these conditions, it made good sense to thousands of peasant families to in effect work full-time at what they had been able to do only part-time previously because of the requirement to work for the government: grow rice for the marketplace.
Numerous changes accompanied these developments. The rural population both dispersed and grew, and was probably less homogeneous and more mobile than it had been a generation earlier. The villages became more vulnerable to arbitrary treatment by government bureaucrats as local elites now had less control over them. By the early twentieth century, as government modernization in a sense caught up with what had been happening in the countryside since the 1870s, the government bureaucracy intruded more and more into village life. Provincial police began to appear, along with district officers and cattle registration and land deeds and registration for compulsory military service. Village handicrafts diminished or died out completely as people bought imported consumer goods, like cloth and tools, instead of making them themselves. More economic variation took shape in rural villages, as some grew prosperous from farming while others did not. As well as can be measured, rural standards of living improved in the Fifth Reign. But the statistical averages mean little when measured against the harsh realities of peasant life.
暹罗
在后十九世纪，。同时老的家族正在被进化的中央集权的政府所取代。这些家庭被取消了抚恤金或仅仅拿走或限制他们的收入。，后来被告知去一些很远的省，并且老的赞助商客户关系和当地分解的社会有联系。在一些法律案例中当地的统治者不能保护他们的亲属和侍从。在1905年底被强迫的农民的练习是为了给当地的统治者做兼职。统治者与农村的人们不再有正常的基本关系。当地的老的统治家族被断绝和农村和他们传统的社会环境。
同样的情况从农村人口的角度来看则更为复杂。根据政府的第一次农村人口的人口普查,1905年,在暹罗大约有三万个村庄。这大量的增加可能出现在二三十年前，即19世纪末。现在很难想象,但是暹罗的中部在1800年代末远远没有像今天这么多人口定居。十九世纪下半叶，曼谷周围还有大片的森林，甚至在世纪末的时候，距离乡村二三十英里远的地方还有野生的大象和老虎。
许多人口运动包含了为了粮食耕种开发新土地。两件事使得这变得有可能且促使其发生。首先，1855年《鲍林条约》制定的王国对全面国际贸易的开放促进了种植大米的经济专业化，这些大米主要供应给亚洲粮食缺乏的地区(尤其是印度和中国)。平均每年从Siam出口的粮食从十九世纪五十年代末的六千万千克不到增长到该世纪末的六亿六千万多公斤;同样期间平均价格翻了一番。与此同时粮食种植地从大约230000公顷增加到350000公顷。取得这样的增长来自于农村人集体决定去扩张他们的耕地，清理并开垦新土地，或是采用更集中的农业模式
他们有能力去做是第二原因。他们比半世纪前的时候更能加自由。因为十五世的统治将山区人民与贵族和当地统治者的关系斩断了。农民现在支付个人的税来替代为政府服务。在这些条件下制造了一个很好的理念给这些农民家庭全天去做以前他们只在闲暇时间做的农事，这是因为要为政府工作：种植大米给市场。
大量的改变伴随着进步。农村人口散播开来并有所增长，同时与更早的一代人相比，他们更不均匀切具有更高的移动性。村庄变得更容易受到政府官员的专制对待，地方精英现在已经对他们的控制较少。到了二十世纪初，在农村由于政府现代化赶上了所发生的一切，因为19世纪70年代，从某种意义上说，政府官僚在乡村生活侵入越来越多地。地方警察开始出现，连同地方人员和家畜注册和土地和登记被强迫服务于军事。村民的手工业减少或者完全灭绝让人们带来进口的产品，像衣服和工具，取代了他们自己做的东西。很多经济变化在乡村发生，比如一些其他种植的繁荣。农村的生活标准在十五世有所提高。但是在人们艰难的生活现状中这个统计的平均值没有很大意义。
1. The word “severed” in the passage is closest in meaning to
A) cut off
B) viewed
C) protected
D) rescued
2. According to paragraph 1, the situation for Siam’s old ruling families changed in all of the following ways EXCEPT:
A) Their incomes were reduced.
B) Their sons were posted as district officers in distant provinces.
C) They could sell lands that had traditionally belonged to them.
D) They had less control over the rural populations.
3. According to paragraph 2, which of the following was true of Siam in 1905?
A) Its urban population began to migrate out of the cities and into the country.
B) Its Central Plain was almost as densely populated as it is today.
C) It was so rural that wild elephants and tigers sometimes roamed Bangkok.
D) It had many more villages than it did in the late 1800s.
4. The phrase “rice-deficient portions” in the passage is closest in meaning to
A) the parts that consume rice
B) the parts that do not have enough rice
C) the parts where rice is grown
D) the parts that depend primarily on rice
5. Paragraph 3 mentions all of the following as signs of economic growth in Siam EXCEPT
A) an increase in the price of rice
B) an increase in the amount of rice leaving Siam
C) an increase in the nutritional quality of the rice grown
D) an increase in the amount of land used for rice production
6. According to paragraph 3, farming families increased the amount of rice they grew in part by
A) growing varieties of rice that produced greater yields
B) forming collective farms by joining together with other farm families
C) planting rice in areas that had previously remained unplanted
D) hiring laborers to help them tend their fields
7. According to paragraph 4, what happened after the government ended the practice of requiring rural people to perform labor for it?
A) Rural people became more closely connected to the aristocracy.
B) Rural people spent more time growing rice for profit.
C) The government began to pay the laborers who grew rice for it.
D) The government introduced a special tax on rice.
8. Which of the following best describes the relationship between paragraphs 3 and 4 in the passage?
A) Paragraph 4 provides further evidence of the economic growth of Siam discussed in paragraph 3.
B) Paragraph 4 continues the discussion begun in paragraph 3 of farming improvements that led to economic growth.
C) Paragraph4 examines a particular effect of the Bowring Treaty mentioned in paragraph 3.
D) Paragraph 4 discusses the second of two factors that contributed to the expansion of rice farming mentioned in paragraph 3.
9. The word “dispersed” in the passage is closest in meaning to
A) spread out
B) gained power
C) adapted
D) specialized
10. The word “compulsory” in the passage is closest in meaning to
A) foreign
B) formal
C) required
D) preferred
11. According to paragraph 5, which of the following was true of Siam’s rural people during the Fifth Reign?
A) They were forced to spend most of the profits from rice growing on registrations required by the government.
B) Their lives remained very difficult even though statistics suggest that their quality of life improved.
C) The non-farmers among them were helped by the government more than the farmers among them were.
D) They were more prosperous when they were ruled by local elites than when they were ruled by the more modern government of the Fifth Reign.
12. According to paragraph 5, the government bureaucracy intruded in village life by
A) requiring the people to register their cattle and land
B) requiring the people to buy certain kinds of imported goods
C) discouraging the people from making handicrafts and tools
D) encouraging more people to take up farming
13.Look at the four squares [?] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.
And yet, how is it that the peasants were able to choose to expand their economic activity in response to the market opportunities?
Where does the sentence best fit?
14. Prose Summary
During the late nineteenth century, changes in Siam’s power structure had important economic consequences.
Answer Choices:
A) Population movement occurred and rice cultivation intensified because Siam became more actively involved in international trade.
B) Changes in taxation and the ending of the requirement that people work part-time for the rulers allowed farmers to produce more rice for the marketplace.
C) Population increases occurred in part because Siam’s farmers were able to produce more rice to feed the population.
D) Land became so valuable that villagers had to pay the government for the land that they worked on.
E) Although rural living standards may have improved somewhat, prosperity varied from village to village and government bureaucracy played a greater role in village life.
F) Government modernization in the early twentieth century resulted in the loss of some freedoms that the rural population had gained from the traditional ruling classes.