GMAT考试经典阅读模拟题训练1.docxVIP

Word文档下载后（可任意编辑） 第 第 PAGE 1 页 共 NUMPAGES 1 页 GMAT考试经典阅读模拟题训练1 阅读往往是一门考试中比较难的部分，因为它不仅考察了我们的理解能力，同时也是对我们词汇量积累，语法掌握的一个考察，所以我们要加强阅读的训练，提高我们自身的水平，在GMAT考试，还有很多相关内容，现在我们来看一下这篇试题吧！ In the eighteenth century, Japan’s feudal overlords, from the shogun (shogun: n.日幕府时代的将军) to the humblest samurai (samurai: n.(封建时代的)日本武士,日本陆军军官), found themselves under financial stress. In part, this stress can be attributed to the overlords’ failure to adjust to a rapidly expanding economy, but the stress was also due to factors beyond the overlords’ control. Concentration of the samurai in castle-towns had acted as a stimulus to trade. Commercial efficiency, in turn, had put temptations in the way of buyers. Since most samurai had been reduced to idleness by years of peace, encouraged to engage in scholarship and martial exercises or to perform administrative tasks that took little time, it is not surprising that their tastes and habits grew expensive. Overlords’ income, despite the increase in rice production among their tenant farmers, failed to keep pace with their expenses. Although shortfalls in overlords’ income resulted almost as much from laxity among their tax collectors (the nearly inevitable outcome of hereditary office-holding) as from their higher standards of living, a misfortune like a fire or flood, bringing an increase in expenses or a drop in revenue, could put a domain in debt to the city rice-brokers who handled its finances. Once in debt, neither the individual samurai nor the shogun himself found it easy to recover.  It was difficult for individual samurai overlords to increase their income because the amount of rice that farmers could be made to pay in taxes was not unlimited, and since the income of Japan’s central government consisted in part of taxes collected by the shogun from his huge domain, the government too was constrained. Therefore, the Tokugawa shoguns began to look to other sources for revenue. Cash profits from government-owned mines wer