（A） spending had outdistanced income
（B） trade had fallen off
（C） profits from mining had declined
（D） the coinage had been sharply debased
（E） the samurai had concentrated in castle towns
5.The passage implies that individual samurai did not find it easy to recover from debt for which of the following reasons？
（A） Agricultural production had increased.
（B） Taxes were irregular in timing and arbitrary in amount.
（C） The Japanese government had failed to adjust to the needs of a changing economy.
（D） The domains of samurai overlords were becoming smaller and poorer as government revenues increased.
（E） There was a limit to the amount in taxes that farmers could be made to pay.
6.The passage suggests that， in eighteenth-century Japan， the office of tax collector
（A） was a source of personal profit to the officeholder
（B） was regarded with derision by many Japanese
（C） remained within families
（D） existed only in castle-towns
（E） took up most of the officeholder's time
7.Which of the following could best be substituted for the word “This ” in line 47 without changing the meaning of the passage？
（A） The search of Japan's Tokugawa shoguns for solvency
（B） The importance of commerce in feudal Japan
（C） The unfairness of the tax structure in eighteenth century Japan
（D） The difficulty of increasing government income by other means
（E） The difficulty experienced by both individual samurai and the shogun himself in extricating themselves from debt
8.The passage implies that which of the following was the primary reason why the Tokugawa shoguns turned to city merchants for help in financing the state？
（A） A series of costly wars had depleted the national treasury.
（B） Most of the country's wealth appeared to be in city merchants' hands.
（C） Japan had suffered a series of economic reversals due to natural disasters such as floods.
（D） The merchants were already heavily indebted to the shoguns.
（E） Further reclamation of land would not have been economically advantageous.
9.According to the passage， the actions of the Tokugawa shoguns in their search for solvency for the government were regrettable because those actions
（A） raised the cost of living by pushing up prices
（B） resulted in the exhaustion of the most easily worked deposits of silver and gold
（C） were far lower in yield than had originally been anticipated
（D） did not succeed in reducing government spending
（E） acted as a deterrent to trade
