老托福阅读0301.pdf

汉客笔记 Reading 0301 Hank Note 第 1 页 2005-8-12 Section Three: Reading Comprehension Questions 1-10 By far the most important United States export product in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was cotton, favored by the European textile industry over flax or wool because it was easy to process and soft to tile touch. Mechanization of spinning and weaving allowed significant centralization and expansion in the textile industry during Comment [R1]: 集中化以及 (5) this period, and at the same time the demand for cotton increased dramatically. American （在此基础上的生产）扩展 producers were able to meet this demand largely because of tile invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793. Cotton could be grown throughout the South, but separating the fiberor lint--from the seed was a laborious process. Sea Island cotton was relatively easy to process by hand, because its fibers were long and seeds were concentrated at the (10) base of the flower, but it demanded a long growing season, available only along the nations eastern seacoast. Short-staple cotton required a much shorter growing season, but the shortness of the fibers and their mixture with seeds meant that a worker could hand-process only about one pound per day. Whitneys gin was a hand-powered machine with revolving drums and metal teeth to pull cotton fibers away from seeds. Using the gin, (15) a worker could produce up to 50 pounds of lint a day. The later development of larger gins, powered by horses, water, or steam, multiplied productivity further. The interaction of improved processing and high demand led to the rapid spread of the cultivation of cotton and to a surge in production. It became the main American export, dwarfing all others. In 1802, cotton composed 14 percent of total Amer