The invention of banking

The invention of banking preceded that of coinage. Banking originated something like 4,000 years ago in Ancient Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq, where the royal palaces and temples provided secure places for the safekeeping of grain and other commodities. Receipts came to be used for transfers not only to the original depositors but also to third parties. Eventually private houses in Mesopotamia also got involved in these banking operations, and laws regulating them were included in the code of Hammurabi, the legal code developed not long afterwards.

In Ancient Egypt too, the centralisation of harvests in state warehouses led to the development of a system of banking. Written orders for the withdrawal of separate lots of grain by owners whose crops had been deposited there for safety and convenience, or which had been compulsorily deposited to the credit of the king, soon became used as a more general method of payment of debts to other people, including tax gatherers, priests and traders. Even after the introduction of coinage, these Egyptian grain banks served to reduce the need for precious metals, which tended to be reserved for foreign purchases, particularly in connection with military activities.

5. In both Mesopotamia and Egypt the banking systems

A. were initially limited to transactions involving depositors.

B. were created to provide income for the king.

C. required a large staff to administer them.來自www.Examw.com

D. grew out of the provision of storage facilities for food.

6. What does the writer suggest about banking?

A. It can take place without the existence of coins.

B. It is likely to begin when people are in debt.

C. It normally requires precious metals.

D. It was started to provide the state with an income.

【簡析】再次證明出題老師偷懶了，再一次直接用了Cambridge Certificate上面用的閱讀，盡管我們還沒有看到題目，但根據(jù)以往的經(jīng)驗，題目一定是無修改照搬。原文有3個extracts,但現(xiàn)在老師能搜索 到的只有其中一個extract,講的銀行的起源；既然是起源，一定跟古代有關(guān)，也一定不會跟錢有關(guān)，但文章信息還是很明確：where the royal palaces and temples provided secure places for the safekeeping of grain and other commodities./ the centralization of harvests in state warehouses led to the development of a system of banking.兩道題，一道細節(jié)，一道推斷，也符合這種類型文章的出題風格。