| 阅读理解。 |
| Tea drinking was common in China for nearly one thousand years before anyone in Europe had ever heard about tea . People in Britain were much slower in finding out what tea was like , mainly because tea was very expensive . It could not be bought in shops and even those people who could afford to have it sent from Holland did so only because it was a fashionable curiosity . Some of them were not sure how to use it . They thought it was a vegetable and tried cooking the leaves . Then they served them mixed with butter and salt . They soon discovered their mistake but many people used to spread the used tea leaves on bread and give them to their children as sandwiches . Tea remained scarce and very expensive in England until the ships of the East India Company began to bring it direct from China early in the seventeenth century . During the next few years so much tea came into the country that the price fell and many people could afford to buy it . At the same time people on the Continent were becoming more and more fond of tea . Until then tea had been drunk without milk in it , but one day a famous French lady named Madame de Sevigne decided to see what tea tasted like when milk was added . She found it so pleasant that she would never again drink it without milk . Because she was such a great lady that her friends thought they must copy everything she did ,they also drank their tea with milk in it . Slowly this habit spread until it reached England and today only very few Britons drink tea without milk . At first , tea was usually drunk after dinner in the evening . No one ever thought of drinking tea in the afternoon until a duchess (公爵夫人) found that a cup of tea and a piece of cake at three or four o'clock stopped her getting "a sinking feeling" as she called it . She invited her friends to have this new meal with her and so , tea-time was born . |
| 1. This passage mainly discusses . |
| A. the history of tea drinking in Britain B. how tea became a popular drink in Britain C. how the Britons got the habit of drinking tea D. how tea-time was born |
| 2. Tea became a popular drink in Britain . |
| A. in the eighteenth century B. in the sixteenth century C. in the seventeenth century D. in the late seventeenth century |
| 3. People in Europe began to drink tea with milk because . |
| A. it tasted like milk B. it tasted more pleasant C. it became a popular drink D. Madame de Sevinge was such a lady with great social influence that people tried to copy the way she drank tea |
| 4. We may infer from the passage that the habit of drinking tea in Britain was mostly due to the influence of . |
| A. a famous French lady B. the ancient Chinese C. the upper social class D. people in Holland |