READING
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 below.
Nutmeg - a valuable spice
The nutmeg tree, Myristicafragrans, is a large evergreen tree native to Southeast Asia.
Until the late 18th century, it only grew in one place in the world: a small group of islands
in the Banda Sea, part of the Moluccas - or Spice Islands - in northeastern Indonesia.
The tree is thickly branched with dense foliage of tough, dark green oval leaves, and
produces small, yellow, bell-shaped flowers and pale yellow pear-shaped fruits. The
fruit is encased in a fleshy husk. When the fruit is ripe, this husk splits into two halves
along a ridge running the length of the fruit. Inside is a purple-brown shiny seed, 2-3cm
long by about 2cm across, surrounded by a lacy red or crimson covering called an 'aril'.
These are the sources of the two spices nutmeg and mace, the former being produced
from the dried seed and the latter from thearil.
Nutmeg was a highly prized and costly ingredient in European cuisine in the Middle
Ages, and was used as a flavouring, medicinal, and preservative agent. Throughout
this period, the Arabs were the exclusive importers of the spice to Europe. They sold
nutmeg for high prices to merchants based in Venice, but they never revealed the exact
location of the source of this extremely valuable commodity. The Arab-Venetian
dominance of the trade finally ended in 1512, when the Portuguese reached the Banda
Islands and began exploiting its precious resources.
Always in danger of competition from neighbouring Spain, the Portuguese began
subcontracting their spice distribution to Dutch traders. Profits began to flow into the
Netherlands, and the Dutch commercial fleet swiftly grew into one of the largest in the
world. The Dutch quietly gained control of most of the shipping and trading of spices in
Northern Europe. Then, in 1580, Portugal fell under Spanish rule, and by the end of the
16th century the Dutch found themselves locked out of the market. As prices for
pepper, nutmeg, and other spices soared across Europe, they decided to fight back.
In 1602, Dutch merchants founded the VOC, a trading corporation better known as the
Dutch East India Company. By 1617, theVOC was the richest commercial operation in
the world. The company had 50,000 employees worldwide, with a private army of
30,000 men and a fleet of 200 ships. At the same time, thousands of people across
Europe were dying of the plague, a highly contagious and deadly disease. Doctors
were desperate for a way to stop the spread of this disease, and they decided nutmeg
held the cure. Everybody wanted nutmeg, and many were willing to spare no expense
to have it. Nutmeg bought for a few pennies in Indonesia could be sold for 68,000 times
its original cost on the streets of London. The only problem was the short supply. And
that's where the Dutch found their opportunity.
The Banda Islands were ruled by local sultans who insisted on maintaining a
neutral trading policy towards foreign powers. This allowed them to avoid the
presence of Portuguese or Spanish troops on their soil, but it also left them
unprotected from other invaders. In 1621, the Dutch arrived and took over.
Once securely in control of the Bandas, the Dutch went to work protecting their
new investment. They concentrated all nutmeg production into a few easily
guarded areas, uprooting and destroying any trees outside the plantation zones.
Anyone caught growing a nutmeg seedling or carrying seeds without the proper
authority was severely punished. In addition, all exported nutmeg was covered
with lime to make sure there was no chance a fertile seed which could be grown
elsewhere would leave the islands. There was only one obstacle to Dutch
domination. One of the Banda Islands, a sliver of land called Run, only 3km
long by less than 1km wide, was under the control of the British. After decades
of fighting for control of this tiny island, the Dutch and British arrived at a
compromise settlement, the Treaty of Breda, in 1667. Intent on securing their
hold over every nutmeg-producing island, the Dutch offered a trade: if the British
would give them the island of Run, they would in tum give Britain a distant and
much less valuable island in North America. The British agreed. That other island
was Manhattan, which is how New Amsterdam became New York. The Dutch
now had a monopoly over the nutmeg trade which would last for another century.
Then, in 1770, a Frenchman named Pierre Poivre successfully smuggled nutmeg
plants to safety in Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa. Some of these were
later exported to the Caribbean where they thrived, especially on the island of
Grenada. Next, in 1778, a volcanic eruption in the Banda region caused a tsunami
that wiped out half the nutmeg groves. Finally, in 1809, the British returned to
Indonesia and seized the Banda Islands by force. They returned the islands to the
Dutch in 1817, but not before transplanting hundreds of nutmeg seedlings to
plantations in several locations across southern Asia. The Dutch nutmeg
monopoly was over.
Today, nutmeg is grown in Indonesia, the Caribbean, India, Malaysia, Papua New
Guinea and Sri Lanka, and world nutmeg production is estimated to average
between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes per year.
Questions 1-4
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in
boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet
1. The leaves of the tree are 1 ....................................... in shape
