長文読解教材
英語長文読解 チューリップとネーデルランド(Tulips and the Netherlands) 問題ダウンロード
英語長文読解 チューリップとネーデルランド(Tulips and Netherlands) 解答ダウンロード
長文問題：
次の文章を読み、以下の設問に答えなさい。
Tulips and the Netherlands:
Tulips, brightly colored flowers, have an interesting history. Today, you can see tulips all over Holland, a region of the Netherlands. Holland did not always have tulips. However, (1) No one is sure where the first tulips came from, but we do know that was once very popular with Turkish rulers.
In Turkey, the tulip was a flower for the rich and powerful. There were laws to limit who could grow and sell tulips. The tulips were not a flower for the ordinary person.
In the 1500s, Europeans heard about these special flowers, and they wanted some of their own. Tulip bulbs from Turkey were sent to the Royal Medical Gardens in Prague. The gardener there was named Clusius. Some years later, Clusius moved to Holland. He took the tulip bulbs with him. He then planted them in Leiden Botanical Garden.
At that time, (2) merchants in Holland were getting very rich from trading with other countries. This wealthy Dutch merchant built large expensive houses. Like the Turkish rulers before them, they wanted tulips for their gardens, but there was a problem. Clusius did not want to share his tulips. To get them, people had to sneak into the botanical garden and steal the bulbs.
Because tulips were so difficult to get and so many people wanted them, they (3) became very expensive. At first, only wealthy merchants could buy them. But in 1630 a new profession began: tulip trading. Traders bought tulip bulbs and resold them at much higher prices. It seemed an easy way to make money.
Soon everyone was borrowing money for tulip bulbs. Ordinary farmers and workers risked everything to buy them. In 1633 one man traded his farmhouse for three bulbs. In 1636 one bulb sold for 5,200 guilders. That was as much money as a rich merchant made in a year! The whole country was wild for tulips. Soon, everyone had (4) tulip fever.
Today, we can see that Dutch was not thinking clearly. They believed that tulip prices would rise forever. But then (5) the fever broke. The traders came to their senses first. From one day to the next, they stopped buying tulip bulbs. The tulip markets crashed. Bulbs worth 5,000 guilders on the day were worth nothing the next. Ordinary people in Holland but the financial markets survived. Today, the tulip is no longer a flower just for the rich. That is good news for the Dutch, who make hundreds of millions of dollars a year from tulip sales to ordinary people all over the world.
下線部(1)の日本語訳を書きなさい。
下線部(2)の日本語訳を書きなさい。
下線部(3)のチューリップが「とても高価になった(became very expensive)」理由は、なにですか。４０字以内の日本語で答えなさい。
下線部(4)の「チューリップフィーバー(tulip fever)」は、どのような順番で発生したのですか。７０字以内の日本語で答えなさい。
下線部(5)の「フィーバーは途絶えた(the fever broke)」とは、どのようになることですか。７０字以内の日本語で答えなさい。
表題：チューリップとネーデルランド (Tulips and the Netherlands)
語数：４２４語 (４２４words)
難易：ＣＥＦＲーＡ２ 公立中学２年生以上
要約：説明文。オランダのチューリップフィーバー(チューリップバブルとも呼ばれます)を題材にした長文です。
領域：自然と科学 (Science and Technology)
用語：栽培技術 貿易 金融
時間：１５分
履歴：２０１８年初稿 ２０２１年第二稿