Directions:For questions 1-7, mark Y(for YES)
if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage; N(for NO) if
the statement contradicts the information given in the passage; NG(for NOT
GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage. For questions 8-10,
complete the sentences with the information given in the passage. The World in a Glass: Six Drinks That Changed
History Tom Standage urges drinkers to savor the
history of their favorite beverages along with the taste. The
author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses (Walker ＆ Company, June 2005),
Standage lauds the libations that have helped shape our world from the Stone Age
to the present day. “The important drinks are still drinks that
we enjoy today,” said Standage, a technology editor at the London-based magazine
the Economist. “They are relics(纪念物) of different historical periods still found
in our kitchens.” Take the six-pack, whose contents first fizzed
at the dawn of civilization. Beer
The ancient Sumerians, who built advanced city-states in the area of
present-day Iraq, began fermenting(发酵) beer from barley at least 6,000 years
ago. “When people started agriculture, the first crops they
produced were barley or wheat. You consume those crops as bread and as beer,”
Standage noted. “It’s the drink associated with the dawn of civilization.
It’s as simple as that.” Beer was popular with the masses from
the beginning. “Beer would have been something that a common
person could have had in the house and made whenever they wanted,” said Linda
Bisson, a microbiologist at the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the
University of California, Davis. “The guys who built the
pyramids were paid in beer and bread,” Standage added. “It was the defining
drink of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Everybody drank it. Today it’s the drink of the
working man, and it was then as well.” Wine Wine may be as old or older than
beer-though no one can be certain. Paleolithic humans probably
sampled the first “wine”as the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes. But
producing and storing wine proved difficult for early cultures.
“To make wine you have to have fresh grapes,” said Bisson, the UC
Davis microbiologist. “For beer you can just store grain and add water to
process it at any time.” Making wine also demanded pottery that
could preserve the precious liquid. “Wine may be easier to make
than beer, but it’s harder to store,” Bisson added.“For most ancient cultures it
would have been hard to catch fermenting grape juice as wine on its way to
becoming vinegar. ” Such caveats and the expense of producing
wine helped the beverage quickly gain more cachet(威望)than beer. Wine was
originally associated with social elites and religious activities.
Wine snobbery may be nearly as old as wine itself. Greeks and Romans
produced many grades of wine for various social classes. The
quest for quality became an economic engine and later drove cultural
expansion. “Once you had regions like Greece and Rome that could
distinguish themselves as making good stuff, it gave them an economic boost,”
Bisson said. “Beer just wasn’t as special.” Spirits Hard liquor, particularly brandy
and rum, placated(安抚)sailors during the long sea voyages of the Age of
Exploration, when European powers plied the seas during the 15th, 16th, and
early 17th centuries. Rum played a crucial part of the
triangular trade between Britain, Africa, and the North American colonies that
once dominated the Atlantic economy. Standage also suggests that
rum may have been more responsible than tea for the independence movement in
Britain’s American colonies. “Distilling molasses for rum was
very important to the New England economy,” he explained. “When the British
tried to tax molasses, it struck at the heart of the economy. The idea of‘no
taxation without representation’originated with molasses and sugar. Only at the
end did it refer to tea.” Great Britain’s longtime superiority
at sea may also owe a debt to its navy’s drink of rum-based choice, grog(掺水烈酒),
which was made a compulsory beverage for sailors in the late 18th
century. “They would make grog with rum, water, and lemon or
lime juice,” Standage said.“This improved the taste but also reduced illness and
scurvy. Fleet physicians thought that this had doubled the efficiency of the
fleet.” Coffee The story of
modern coffee starts in the Arabian Peninsula, where roasted beans were first
brewed around 1000 A.D. Sometime around the 15th century coffee spread
throughout the Arab world. “In the Arab world coffee rose as an
alternative to alcohol, and coffeehouses as alternatives to taverns (酒馆)-both of
which are banned by Islam,” Standage said. When coffee arrived
in Europe it was similarly hailed as an “anti-alcohol”that was quite welcome
during the Age of Reason in the 18th century. “Just at the point
when the Enlightenment is getting going, here’s a drink that sharpens the mind,”
Standage said. “The coffeehouse is the perfect venue(聚会地点) to get together and
exchange ideas and information. The French Revolution started in a
coffeehouse.” Coffee also fuelled commerce and had strong links
to the rituals of business that remain to the present day. Lloyds of London and
the London Stock Exchange were both originally coffeehouses. Tea Tea became a daily drink in China
around the third century A. D. Standage says tea played a
leading role in the expansion of imperial and industrial might in Great Britain
many centuries later. During the 19th century, the East India Company enjoyed a
monopoly on tea exports from China. “Englishmen around the world
could drink tea, whether they were a colonial administrator in India or a
London businessman,”Standage said. “The sun never set on the British
Empire-which meant that it was always teatime somewhere.” As the
Industrial Revolution of 18th and 19th centuries gained steam, tea provided some
of the fuel. Factory workers stayed alert during long, monotonous shifts thanks
to welcome tea breaks. The beverage also had unintended health
benefits for rapidly growing urban areas.“When you start packing people together
in cities, it’s helpful to have a water-purification technology like tea,” which
was brewed with boiling water, Standage explained. Coca-Cola In 1886 pharmacist John Stith
Pemberton sold about nine Coca-Colas a day. Today his soft
drink is one of world’s most valuable brands-sold in more countries than the
United Nations has members. “It may be the second most widely
understood phrase in the world after ‘OK’”, Standage said. The
drink has become a symbol of the United States-love it or hate it. Standage
notes that East Germans quickly reached for Cokes when the Berlin Wall fell,
while Thai Muslims poured it out into the streets to show disdain for the U.S.
in the days leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “Coca-Cola
encapsulates what happened in the 20th century: the rise of consumer capitalism
and the emergence of America as a superpower,” Standage said.“It’s globalization
in a bottle.” While Coke may not always produce a smile, a
survey by the Economist magazine (Standage’s employer), suggests that the soft
drink’s presence is a great indicator of happy citizens. When countries were
polled for happiness, as defined by a United Nations index, high scores
correlated with sales of Coca-Cola. “It’s not because Coke makes
people happy, but because its sales happen in the dynamic free-market economies
that tend to produce happy people,” Standage said. Coca-Cola has become a symbol of______.