hce_tcu
109年
英文
第 37 題
📖 題組：
Tulip are Old World, rather than New World, plants, with the origins of the species lying in Central Asia. They became an integral part of the gardens of the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth century onward, and, soon after, part of European life as well. The Netherlands, particularly, became famous for its cultivation of the flower. A tenuous line marked the advance of the tulip to the New World, where it was unknown in the wild. The first Dutch colonies in North America had been established in New Netherland by the Dutch West India Company in 1624, and one individual who settled in New Amsterdam (Today’s Manhattan section of New York City) in 1642 described the flowers that graciously colonized the settlers’ gardens. They were the same flowers seen in Dutch still-life paintings of the time: Crown imperials, roses, carnations, and of course tulips. They flourished in Pennsylvania too, where in 1698 William Penn received a report of John Tateham’s “Great and Stately Palace,” its garden full of tulips. By 1760, Boston newspapers were advertising 50 different kinds of mixed tulip “roots.” But the length of the journey between Europe and North America created many difficulties. Thomas Hancock, an English settler, wrote thanking his plant supplier for a gift of some tulip bulbs from England, but his letter the following year grumbled that they were all dead. Tulips arrived in Holland, Michigan, with a later wave of early nineteenth-century Dutch immigrants who quickly colonized the plains of Michigan. Together with many other Dutch settlements, such as the one at Pella, Iowa, they established a regular demand for European plants. The demand was bravely met by a new kind of tulip entrepreneur, the traveling salesperson. One Dutchman, Hendrick van der Schoot, spent six months in 1849 traveling through the United States taking orders for tulip bulbs. While tulip bulbs were traveling from Europe to the United States to satisfy the nostalgic longings of homesick English and Dutch settlers, North American plants were traveling in the opposite direction. In England, the enthusiasm for American plants was one reason why tulips dropped out of the fashion in the gardens of the rich and famous.
Tulip are Old World, rather than New World, plants, with the origins of the species lying in Central Asia. They became an integral part of the gardens of the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth century onward, and, soon after, part of European life as well. The Netherlands, particularly, became famous for its cultivation of the flower. A tenuous line marked the advance of the tulip to the New World, where it was unknown in the wild. The first Dutch colonies in North America had been established in New Netherland by the Dutch West India Company in 1624, and one individual who settled in New Amsterdam (Today’s Manhattan section of New York City) in 1642 described the flowers that graciously colonized the settlers’ gardens. They were the same flowers seen in Dutch still-life paintings of the time: Crown imperials, roses, carnations, and of course tulips. They flourished in Pennsylvania too, where in 1698 William Penn received a report of John Tateham’s “Great and Stately Palace,” its garden full of tulips. By 1760, Boston newspapers were advertising 50 different kinds of mixed tulip “roots.” But the length of the journey between Europe and North America created many difficulties. Thomas Hancock, an English settler, wrote thanking his plant supplier for a gift of some tulip bulbs from England, but his letter the following year grumbled that they were all dead. Tulips arrived in Holland, Michigan, with a later wave of early nineteenth-century Dutch immigrants who quickly colonized the plains of Michigan. Together with many other Dutch settlements, such as the one at Pella, Iowa, they established a regular demand for European plants. The demand was bravely met by a new kind of tulip entrepreneur, the traveling salesperson. One Dutchman, Hendrick van der Schoot, spent six months in 1849 traveling through the United States taking orders for tulip bulbs. While tulip bulbs were traveling from Europe to the United States to satisfy the nostalgic longings of homesick English and Dutch settlers, North American plants were traveling in the opposite direction. In England, the enthusiasm for American plants was one reason why tulips dropped out of the fashion in the gardens of the rich and famous.
The passage mentions which of the following as a problem associated with the importation of tulips into North America?
- A They were no longer fashionable by the time they arrived.
- B They often failed to survive.
- C Frequent order cancellation by Dutch immigrants.
- D Settlers knew little about how to cultivate them.
思路引導 VIP
在閱讀第二段末尾時，作者提到從歐洲到北美的「旅途長度」造成了許多困難。請試著想像一下：在 18 世紀，如果我們要將活生生的植物球莖放在顛簸且陰暗的船艙裡航行數個月，這些植物最有可能面臨什麼樣的生理挑戰？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能準確地從長篇段落中定位關鍵細節，並做出正確的推論，展現了非常細膩的閱讀理解能力。這題的核心在於理解跨洋運輸的挑戰。課文末段明確提到，歐洲與北美之間的長途航行給植物貿易帶來了諸多困難，並以 Thomas Hancock 的信件作為例證：他雖然收到了球莖，但隔年的信中卻抱怨這些植物「全都枯死了（all dead）」。這直接驗證了選項 (B) 所述，植物在運輸過程中經常無法存活。
跨國貿易的生存考驗
這道題目具備不錯的鑑別度，難度在於區分不同地區的背景資訊。例如選項 (A) 提到的「不再流行」，在文中其實是指英國（England）因為對美洲植物產生興趣，才導致鬱金香在英國上流社會失寵，而非北美進口時的問題。你能夠不受這些干擾項影響，精確鎖定 Hancock 的案例與「困難（difficulties）」的關聯，代表你已經掌握了證據導向的閱讀技巧，這是應對長篇文章最重要的能力！