2017年3月4日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：When the Tulip Bubble Burst

2017年3月4日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：When the Tulip Bubble Burst

Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Depending on the species, tulip plants can grow as short as 4 inches (10cm) or as high as 28 inches (71cm). The tulip’s large flowers usually bloom on scapes or sub-scapose stems that lack bracts. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species bear multiple flowers on their scapes (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica). The showy, generally cup or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and threesepals, which are often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. These six tepals are often marked on the interior surface near the bases with darker colorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue (several tulips with “blue” in the name have a faint violet hue).

A Long before anyone ever heard of Qualcomm, CMGI, Cisco Systems, or the other high-tech stocks that have soared during the current bull market, there was Semper Augustus. Both more prosaic and more sublime (崇高的) than any stock or bond, it was a tulip of extraordinary beauty, its midnight-blue petal stopped by a band of pure white and accented with crimson flares. To denizens of 17th century Holland, little was as desirable.

B Around 1624, the Amsterdam man who owned the only dozen specimens was offered 3,000 guilders (荷兰盾) for one bulb. While there’s no accurate way to render that in today’s greenbacks, the sum was roughly equal to the annual income of a wealthy merchant. (A few years later, Rembrandt received about half that amount for painting The Night Watch.) Yet the bulb’s owner, whose name is now lost to history, nixed the offer.

C Who was crazier, the tulip lover who refused to sell for a small fortune or the one who was willing to splurge. That’s a question that springs to mind after reading Tulip mania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions. It aroused by British journalist Mike Dash. In recent years, as investors have intentionally forgotten everything they learned in Investing 101 in order to load up on unproved, unprofitable dot-com issues, tulip mania (狂 热) has been invoked frequently. In this concise, artfully written account, Dash tells the real history behind the buzzword (流星鱼) and in doing so, offers a cautionary tale for our times.

D The Dutch were not the first to go gaga over the tulip. Long before the first tulip bloomed in Europe-Bavaria, it turns out, in 1559-the flower had enchanted the Persians and bewitched the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. It was in Holland, however, that the passion for tulips found its most fertile ground, for reasons that had little to do with horticulture.

。。。。。余下原文省略！

雅思阅读真题题目：

Questions 14-18

The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-I

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-I, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet

14 Difference between tulip and high-tech shares

15 Spread of tulip before 17th century

16 Indication of money offered for rare bulb in 17th century

17 Tulip was treated as money in Holland

18 Comparison made between tulip and other plants

。。。。。余下题目省略！

2017年3月4日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：When the Tulip Bubble Burst，完整版下载，10元有偿！