雅思阅读 009 · The Age of Exploration

历史主题。题型：段落信息匹配 + 填空。难度：中等（P2）。

正文 Passage

A. A world half-known

At the start of the 15th century, the maps of the world drawn by European scholars showed Europe, Asia and North Africa — and little else. The Americas were unknown. The Pacific Ocean was a rumour. The southern tip of Africa had never been rounded by a European ship. Within 150 years, that would change completely.

B. The Portuguese lead

The Age of Exploration began, as so much else did, with a single ambitious man: Prince Henry of Portugal, known to history as "the Navigator". Though he himself never sailed on a voyage of discovery, he devoted his life and fortune to exploring the west coast of Africa. By his death in 1460, Portuguese sailors had reached as far south as what is now Sierra Leone. The knowledge they gathered — of winds, currents and coastlines — laid the foundation for everything that followed.

C. Rounding the Cape

In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias became the first European to sail around the southern tip of Africa, proving that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were connected. A decade later, Vasco da Gama went further, crossing the Indian Ocean to reach India. For the first time, a sea route linked Europe directly to the spices of Asia — bypassing the middlemen who had controlled the overland trade for centuries.

D. The world turned upside down

While the Portuguese sailed east, Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor in the service of Spain, sailed west in 1492, hoping to reach Asia by another route. He never realised that the lands he encountered were not the Indies but two entire continents unknown to Europeans. The voyages of Columbus, followed by Ferdinand Magellan's expedition of 1519-1522 — the first to circumnavigate the globe — redrew the map of the world and the European understanding of it.

E. Consequences, intended and otherwise

The consequences were enormous, and not all were welcome. European powers carved up newly discovered lands, often with brutal consequences for indigenous populations. New crops — potatoes, maize, tomatoes — transformed European agriculture. Diseases brought by Europeans devastated American populations, while European demand for labour led to the transatlantic slave trade, one of the darkest chapters in human history.

F. Legacy

The Age of Exploration was neither purely heroic nor purely criminal. It was both: an age of extraordinary courage and terrible cruelty, of scientific curiosity and ruthless exploitation. Its legacy — a world that was suddenly, irreversibly connected — is the world we still live in today.

题目 Questions

Questions 1-5: Which paragraph mentions the following?

1. the first European voyage around the southern tip of Africa

2. potatoes and maize transforming European agriculture

3. Prince Henry, who never himself sailed

4. the first expedition to sail around the world

5. the transatlantic slave trade

Questions 6-10: Complete the notes. NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS.

• Portuguese sailors reached modern (6) ____________ by 1460.
• Vasco da Gama reached (7) ____________ by sea.
• Columbus sailed in (8) ____________.
• Magellan's expedition circumnavigated the globe between 1519 and (9) ____________.
• The Age of Exploration left a world that was irreversibly (10) ____________.

答案 Answers

核心词汇

exploration / circumnavigate / current / spice / indigenous / colony / slave trade / legacy / coast / expedition / overland / bypass