最新TOEFL托福阅读理解真题

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新托福阅读背景知识精选5篇

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TOEFL托福阅读理解真题

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托福阅读真题1

It is estimated that over 99 percent of all species that ever existed have become extinct. What causes extinction? When a species is no longer adapted to a changed environment, it may perish. The exact causes of a species' death vary from situation to situation. Rapid ecological change may render an environment hostile to a species. For example, temperatures may change and a species may not be able to adapt. Food resources may be affected by environmental changes, which will then cause problems for a species requiring these resources. Other species may become better adapted to an environment, resulting in competition and, ultimately, in the death of a species.

The fossil record reveals that extinction has occurred throughout the history of Earth. Recent analyses have also revealed that on some occasions many species became extinct at the same time — a mass extinction. One of the best-known examples of mass extinction occurred 65 million years ago with the demise of dinosaurs and many other forms of life. Perhaps the largest mass extinction was the one that occurred 225 million years ago, when approximately 95 percent of all species died, mass extinctions can be caused by a relatively rapid change in the environment and can be worsened by the close interrelationship of many species. If, for example, something were to happen to destroy much of the plankton in the oceans, then the oxygen content of Earth would drop, affection even organisms not living in the oceans. Such a change would probably lead to a mass extinction.

One interesting, and controversial, finding is that extinctions during the past 250 million years have tended to be more intense every 26 million years. This periodic extinction might be due to intersection of the Earth's orbit with a cloud of comets, but this theory is purely speculative. Some researchers have also speculated that extinction may often be random. That is, certain species may be eliminated and others may survive for no particular reason. A species' survival may have nothing to do with its ability or inability to adapt. If so, some of evolutionary history may reflect a sequence of essentially random events.

1. The word it in line 3 refers to

(A) environment

(B) species

(D) 99 percent

2. The word ultimately in line 8 is closest in meaning to

(A) exceptionally

(B) dramatically

(D) unfortunately

3. What does the author say in paragraph 1 regarding most species in Earth's history

(A) They have remained basically unchanged from their original forms.

(B) They have been able to adapt to ecological changes.

(D) They are no longer in existence.

4. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraph 1 as resulting from rapid ecological

change?

(A) Temperature changes

(B) Availability of food resources

(D) Competition among species

5. The word demise in line 12 is closest in meaning to

(A) change

(B) recovery

(D) death

6. Why is plankton mentioned in line 17?

(A) To demonstrate the interdependence of different species.

(B) To emphasize the importance of food resources in preventing mass extinction.

ocean.

(D) To point out that certain species could never become extinct.

7. According to paragraph 2, evidence from fossils suggests that

(A) Extinction of species has occurred from time to time throughout Earth's history.

(B) Extinctions on Earth have generally been massive

(D) Dinosaurs became extinct much earlier than scientists originally believed.

8. The word finding in line 20 is closest in meaning to

(A) published information

(B) research method

(D) scientific discovery

9. Which of the following can be inferred about the theory mentioned in Line 21-23?

(A) Many scientists could be expected to disagree with it.

(B) Evidence to support the theory has recently been found.

(D) Most scientists believe the theory to be accurate.

10. In paragraph 3, the author makes which of the following statements about a species' survival?

(A) It reflects the interrelationship of many species.

(B) It may depend on chance events.

(D) It is associated with astronomical conditions.

11. According to the passage , it is believed that the largest extinction of a species occurred

(A) 26 million years ago

(B) 65 million years ago

(D) 250 million years ago

PASSAGE 77 BCDCD AADAB C

托福阅读真题2

Archaeological discoveries have led some scholars to believe that the first Mesopotamian inventors of writing may have been a people the later Babylonians called Subarians. According to tradition, they came from the north and moved into Uruk in the south. By about 3100 B.C., they were apparently subjugated in southern Mesopotamia by the Sumerians, whose name became synonymous with the region immediately north of the Persian Gulf, in the fertile lower valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Here the Sumerians were already well established by the year 3000 B.C. They had invented bronze, an alloy that could be cast in molds, out of which they made tools and weapons. They lived in cities, and they had begun to acquire and use capital. Perhaps most important, the Sumerians adapted writing (probably from the Subarians) into a flexible tool of communication.

Archaeologists have known about the Sumerians for over 150 years. Archaeologists working at Nineveh in northern Mesopotamia in the mid-nineteenth century found many inscribed clay tablets. Some they could decipher because the language was a Semitic one (Akkadian), on which scholars had already been working for a generation. But other tablets were inscribed in another language that was not Semitic and previously unknown. Because these inscriptions made reference to the king of Sumer and Akkad, a scholar suggested that the new language be called Sumerian.

But it was not until the 1890's that archaeologists excavating in city-states well to the south of Nineveh found many thousands of tablets inscribed in Sumerian only. Because the Akkadians thought of Sumerian as a classical language (as ancient Greek and Latin are considered today), they taught it to educated persons and they inscribed vocabulary, translation exercises, and other study aids on tablets. Working from known Akkadian to previously unknown Sumerian, scholars since the 1890's have learned how to read the Sumerian language moderately well. Vast quantities of tablets in Sumerian have been unearthed during the intervening years from numerous sites.

1. According to the passage , the inventors of written language in Mesopotamia were probably

the

(A) Babylonians

(B) Subarians

(D) Sumerians

2. The word subjugated in line 4 is closest in meaning to

(A) distinguished

(B) segregated

(D) conquered

3. The phrase synonymous with in line 5 is closest in meaning to

(A) equivalent to

(B) important for

(D) familiar with

4. According to the passage , by the year 3000 B.C. the Sumerians had already done all of the

following EXCEPT:

(A) They had abandoned the area north of the Persian Gulf.

(B) They had established themselves in cities.

(D) They had created bronze tools and weapons.

5. The word some in line 14 refers to

(A) Archaeologists

(B) Sumerians

(D) clay tablets

6. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage concerning the Sumerians?

(A) They were descendants of the Persians.

(B) They were the first people to cultivate the valley of the Tigris.

(D) They had the beginnings of an economy.

7. According to the passage , when did archaeologists begin to be able to understand tablets

inscribed in Sumerian?

(A) in the early nineteenth century

(B) more than 150 years ago

(D) in the mid-eighteenth century

8. According to the passage , in what way did the Sumerian language resemble ancient Greek and

Latin?

(A) It was invented in Mesopotamia.

(B) It became well established around 3000 B.C.

(D) It was used exclusively for business transactions.

9. The word excavating in line 19 is closest in meaning to

(A) living

(B) digging

(D) building

10. According to the passage , how did archaeologists learn to read the Sumerian language?

(A) by translating the work of the Subarians

(B) by using their knowledge of spoken Semitic languages

(D) by using their knowledge of Akkadian

PASSAGE 78 BDAAD DCCBD

托福阅读真题3

Some animal behaviorists argue that certain animals can remember past events, anticipate future ones, make plans and choices, and coordinate activities within a group. These scientists, however, are cautious about the extent to which animals can be credited with conscious processing.

Explanations of animal behavior that leave out any sort of consciousness at all and ascribe actions entirely to instinct leave many questions unanswered. One example of such unexplained behavior: honeybees communicate the sources of nectar to one another by doing a dance in a figure-eight pattern. The orientation of the dance conveys the position of the food relative to the sun's position in the sky, and the speed of the dance tells how far the food source is from the hive. Most researchers assume that the ability to perform and encode the dance is innate and shows no special intelligence. But in one study, when experimenters kept changing the site of the food source, each time moving the food 25 percent farther from the previous site, foraging honeybees began to anticipate where the food source would appear next. When the researchers arrived at the new location, they would find the bees circling the spot, waiting for their food. No one has yet explained how bees, whose brains weigh four ten-thousandths of an ounce, could have inferred the location of the new site.

Other behaviors that may indicate some cognition include tool use. Many animals, like the otter who uses a stone to crack mussel shells, are capable of using objects in the natural environment as rudimentary tools. One researcher has found that mother chimpanzees occasionally show their young how to use tools to open hard nuts. In one study, chimpanzees compared two pairs of food wells containing chocolate chips. One pair might contain, say, five chips and three chips, the other four chips and three chips. Allowed to choose which pair they wanted, the chimpanzees almost always chose the one with the higher total, showing some sort of summing ability. Other chimpanzees have learned to use numerals to label quantities of items and do simple sums.

1. What does the passage mainly discuss?

(A) The role of instinct in animal behavior

(B) Observations that suggest consciousness in animal behavior

(D) Differences between the behavior of animals in their natural environments and in laboratory

experiments.

2. Which of the following is NOT discussed as an ability animals are thought to have?

(A) Selecting among choices

(B) Anticipating events to come

(D) Communicating emotions

3. What is the purpose of the honeybee dance?

(A) To determine the quantity of food at a site

(B) To communicate the location of food

(D) To identify the type of nectar that is available

4. The word yet in line 15 is closest in meaning to

(A) however

(B) since

(D) so far

5. What did researchers discover in the study of honeybees discussed in paragraph 2?

(A) Bees are able to travel at greater speeds than scientists thought.

(B) The bees could travel 25% farther than scientists expected.

(D) Changing the location of food caused bees to decrease their dance activity.

6. It can be inferred from the passage that brain size is assumed to

(A) be an indicator of cognitive ability

(B) vary among individuals within a species

(D) correspond to levels of activity

7. Why are otters and mussel shells included in the discussion in paragraph 3?

(A) To provide an example of tool use among animals

(B) To prove that certain species demonstrate greater ability in tool use than other species

(D) To demonstrate why mother chimpanzees show their young how to use tools

8. The word rudimentary in line 20 is closest in meaning to

(A) superior

(B) original

(D) technical

9. It can be inferred from the statement about mother chimpanzees and their young (lines 20-22)

that young chimpanzees have difficulty

(A) communicating with their mothers

(B) adding quantities

(D) opening hard nuts

10. The phrase the one in line 24-25 refers to the

(A) study

(B) pair

(D) ability

11. Scientists concluded from the experiment with chimpanzees and chocolate chips that

chimpanzees

(A) lack abilities that other primates have

(B) prefer to work in pairs or groups

(D) have difficulty selecting when given choices

PASSAGE 79 BDBDC AACDB C

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