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IV. Passage Completion: Fill in the blanks 30% (請忽略大小寫)Since time immemorial, there have been taxes. Taxes on water, on grain, on ale, beards, or windows.Naturally, clothes, tools and “goods in general” have all been taxed. Nowadays everything is routinely taxed, withthe possible 36 of beards.But perhaps the most hated tax of them all was the salt tax. The ancient Chinese invented the tax 4000 yearsago, and the French version of the tax—the hated gabelle—notoriously included a 37 that people had tobuy a minimum quantity each week—or be whipped or imprisoned.And it was the salt tax that 38 Gandhi into staging one of the most famous acts of nonviolent resistancein history: the march to the sea and a 39 distilling of salt from the seawater.Less well-known is the related fact that during the days of the British Raj huge hedge was constructedrunning for thousands of miles across central India, an 40 comparable in scale to China’s Great Wall. Only,this hedge was not to keep out 41 , but to keep out cheap supplies of salt. Within the area enclosed by thehedge, the colonial masters taxed the Indian people for the use of this 42 but essential mineral. But why43 salt? Well, the choice was a pretty logical one. The British relied on the help of the rich and wealthy Indianprinces and landlords to maintain their grip on this huge and populous colony. So they dare not tax them. On theother hand, they also needed revenues to pay for the cost of their rule, and most people in India had little or nomoney and little or no goods to be taxed.So the British came up with a new version of that very ancient tax. 44 at a rate equivalent to almost aweek’s work in every month, it was significant enough to occasion salt smuggling, and that’s where the hedgecame in. Planted between the salt producing areas and the rest of India and guarded by troops at regular intervals,it gave the locals a stark choice:45 your salt tax or die. 
 
(A) levied
(B) provoked
(C) pay
(D) choose
(E) ceremonial(AB) unassuming (AC) invaders (AD) edifice (BC) stipulation (BD) exception
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