TOEFL阅读真题

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托福阅读真题1

PASSAGE 40

According to anthropologists, people in preindustrial societies spent 3 to 4 hours per day or about 20 hours per week doing the work necessary for life. Modern comparisons of the amount of work performed per week, however, begin with the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) when 10- to 12-hour workdays with six workdays per week were the norm. Even with extensive time devoted to work, however, both incomes and standards of living were low. As incomes rose near the end of the Industrial Revolution, it became increasingly common to treat Saturday afternoons as a half-day holiday. The half holiday had become standard practice in Britain by the 1870's, but did not become common in the United States until the 1920's.

In the United States, the first third of the twentieth century saw the workweek move from 60 hours per week to just under 50 hours by the start of the 1930's. In 1914 Henry Ford reduced daily work hours at his automobile plants from 9 to 8. In 1926 he announced that henceforth his factories would close for the entire day on Saturday. At the time, Ford received criticism from other firms such as United States Steel and Westinghouse, but the idea was popular with workers.

The Depression years of the 1930's brought with them the notion of job sharing to spread available work around; the workweek dropped to a modem low for the United States of 35 hours. In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act mandated a weekly maximum of 40 hours to begin in 1940, and since that time the 8-hour day, 5-day workweek has been the standard in the United States. Adjustments in various places, however, show that this standard is not immutable. In 1987, for example, German metalworkers struck for and received a 37.5-hour workweek; and in 1990 many workers in Britain won a 37-hour week. Since 1989, the Japanese government has moved from a 6- to a 5-day workweek and has set a national target of 1,800 work hours per year for the average worker. The average amount of work per year in Japan in 1989 was 2,088 hours per worker, compared to 1,957 for the United States and 1,646 for France.

1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

(A) Why people in preindustrial societies worked few hours per week

(B) Changes that have occurred in the number of hours that people work per week

(D) Working conditions during the Industrial Revolution

2. Compared to preiudustrial times, the number of hours in the workweek in the nineteenth century

(A) remained constant

(B) decreased slightly

(D) increased significantly

3. The word norm in line 5 is closest in meaning to

(A) minimum.

(B) example

(D) standard

4. The word henceforth in line 13 is closest in meaning to

(A) in the end

(B) for a brief period

(D) on occasion

5. The idea mentioned in line 15 refers to

(A) the 60-hour workweek

(B) the reduction in the cost of automobiles

(D) the criticism of Ford by United States Steel and Westinghouse

6. What is one reason for the change in the length of the workweek for the average worker in the

United States during the 1930's?

(A) Several people sometimes shared a single job.

(B) Labor strikes in several countries influenced labor policy in the United States.

(D) The United States government instituted a 35-hour workweek.

7. Which of the following is mentioned as one of the purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act of

1938 ?

(A) to discourage workers from asking for increased wages

(B) to establish a limit on the number of hours in the workweek

(D) to restrict trade with countries that had a long workweek

8. The word mandated in line 18 is closest in meaning to

(A) required

(B) recommended

(D) considered

9. The word immutable in line 21 is closest in meaning to

(A) unmatched

(B) irregular

(D) unchangeable

10. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as evidence that the length of the workweek has

been declining since the nineteenth century?

(A) The half-day holiday (line 7)

(B) Henry Ford (lines 11-12)

(D) German metalworkers (line 21)

11. According to the passage , one goal of the Japanese government is to reduce the average

annual amount of work to

(A) 1,646 hours

(B) 1,800 hours

(D) 2,088 hours

PASSAGE 40 BDDCC ABADCB

托福阅读真题2

PASSAGE 41

Biological diversity has become widely recognized as a critical conservation issue only in the past two decades. The rapid destruction of the tropical rain forests, which are the ecosystems with the highest known species diversity on Earth, has awakened people to the importance and fragility of biological diversity. The high rate of species extinctions in these environments is jolting, but it is important to recognize the significance of biological diversity in all ecosystems. As the human population continues to expand, it will negatively affect one after another of Earth's ecosystems. In terrestrial ecosystems and in fringe marine ecosystems (such as wetlands), the most common problem is habitat destruction. In most situations, the result is irreversible. Now humans are beginning to destroy marine ecosystems through other types of activities, such as disposal and run off of poisonous waste; in less than two centuries, by significantly reducing the variety of species on Earth, they have unraveled cons of evolution and irrevocably redirected its course.

Certainly, there have been periods in Earth's history when mass extinctions have occurred. The extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by some physical event, either climatic or cosmic. There have also been less dramatic extinctions, as when natural competition between species reached an extreme conclusion. Only .01 percent of the species that have lived on Earth have survived to the present, and it was largely chance that determined which species survived and which died out.

However, nothing has ever equaled the magnitude and speed with which the human species is altering the physical and chemical world and demolishing the environment. In fact, there is wide agreement that it is the rate of change humans are inflicting, even more than the changes themselves, that will lead to biological devastation. Life on Earth has continually been in flux as slow physical and chemical changes have occurred on Earth, but life needs time to adapt — time for migration and genetic adaptation within existing species and time for the proliferation of new genetic material and new species that may be able to survive in new environments.

1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

(A) The causes of the extinction of the dinosaur

(B) The variety of species found in tropical rain forests.

(D) The time required for species to adapt to new environments

2. The word critical in line 1 is closest in meaning to

(A) negative

(B) essential

(D) complicated

3. The word jolting in line 5 is closest in meaning to

(A) predicted

(B) shocking

(D) illuminating

4. The author mentions the reduction of the variety of species on Earth in line 12 to suggest that

(A) new habitats can be created for species

(B) humans are often made ill by polluted water

(D) an understanding of evolution can prevent certain species from disappearing

5. The author mentions all of the following as examples of the effect of humans oil the world's

ecosystems EXCEPT

(A) destruction of the tropical rain forests

(B) habitat destruction in wetlands

(D) the introduction of new varieties of plant species

6. The author mentions the extinction of the dinosaurs in the second paragraph to emphasize

that

(A) the cause of the dinosaurs extinction is unknown

(B) Earth's climate has changed significantly since the dinosaurs' extinction,

(D) actions by humans could not stop the irreversible process of a species' extinction

7. The word magnitude in line 20 is closest in meaning to

(A) concern

(B) determination

(D) extent

8. According to the passage , natural evolutionary change is different from changes caused by

humans in that changes caused by humans

(A) are occurring at a much faster rate

(B) are less devastating to most species

(D) are reversible

9. With which of the following statements would the author be most likely to agree?

(A) Human influence on ecosystems should not be a factor in determining public policy.

(B) The extinction of a few species is an acceptable consequence of human progress.

(D) Humans should be more conscious of the influence they have on ecosystems

PASSAGE 41 CBBCD CDAD

托福阅读真题3

PASSAGE 42

Railroads reshaped the North American environment and reoriented North American behavior. In a quarter of a century, claimed the Omaha Daily Republican in 1883, they have made the people of the United States homogeneous, breaking through the peculiarities and provincialisms which marked separate and unmingling sections.

The railroad simultaneously stripped the landscape of the natural resources, made velocity of transport and economy of scale necessary parts of industrial production, and carried consumer goods to households; it dispatched immigrants to unsettled places, drew emigrants away from farms and villages to cities, and sent men and guns to battle. It standardized time and travel, seeking to annihilate distance and space by allowing movement at any time and in any season or type of weather. In its grand and impressive terminals and stations, architects recreated historic Roman temples and public baths, French chateaus and Italian bell towers — edifices that people used as stages for many of everyday life's high emotions: meeting and parting, waiting and worrying, planning new starts or coming home.

Passenger terminals, like the luxury express trains that hurled people over spots, spotlight the romance of railroading. (The twentieth-Century Limited sped between Chicago and New York in twenty hours by 1915). Equally important to everyday life were the slow freight trans chugging through industrial zones, the morning and evening commuter locals shuttling back ions and urban terminals, and the incessant comings and goings that occurred in the classifications, or switching, yards. Moreover, in addition to its being a transportation pathway equipped with a mammoth physical plant of tracks signals, crossings, bridges, and junctions, plus telegraph and telephone lines the railroad nurtured factory complexes, coat piles, warehouses, and generating stations, forming along its right-of-way what has aptly been called the metropolitan corridor of the American landscape.

1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

(A) The influence of ancient architecture on the design of railroad terminals

(B) The importance of natural resources in the development of railroads

(D) Technological improvements in the area of communication in the nineteenth century

2. It can be inferred from the quote from the Omaha Daily Republican (line 2-4) that railroads

(A) made all sections of the nation much wealthier

(B) brought more unity to what had been a fragmented nation

(D) had no effect on the environment of the United States

3. The word it in line 7 refers to

(A) transport

(B) scale

(D) railroad

4. The word drew in line 8 is closest

(A) obliged

(B) designed

(D) attracted

5. The word annihilate in line 9 is closest in meaning to

(A) conquer

(B) utilize

(D) mechanize

6. The word Moreover in line 20 is closest in meaning to

(A) consequently

(B) furthermore

(D) because

7. All of the following were true of impressive passenger terminals EXCEPT:

(A) Their architecture was influenced by the architecture of Europe.

(B) Luxury express trains traveled between them.

(D) They were important to many commuters.

8. According to the passage , which type of development lined the area along the metropolitan

corridor?

(A) Stores and shopping areas

(B) Recreational areas

(D) Agricultural

9. The word aptly in line 24 is closest in meaning to

(A) appropriately

(B) virtually

(D) incessantly

10. The author mentions the Twentieth-Century Limited as an example of

(A) a freight train

(B) a commuter train

(D) an underground train

11. The author gives a synonym for which of the following words?

(A) homogeneous (line 3)

(B) standardized (line 9)

(D) classification(line 20)

PASSAGE 42 CBDDA BCCAC D

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