托福阅读专题练习

TPO 1-1 Groundwater

Paragraph 8: Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place. █But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces. █It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry. █The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away. █

13. Look at the four squares [█] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

What, then, determines what proportion of the water stays and what proportion drains away?

Where would the sentence best fit?

TPO 1-2 The Origins of Theater

Paragraph 3: █Although origin in ritual has long been the most popular, it is by no means the only theory about how the theater came into being. █Storytelling has been propose d as one alternative.█Under this theory, relating and listening to stories are seen as fundamental human pleasures. █Thus, the recalling of an event (a hunt, battle, or other feat) is elaborated through the narrator’s pantomim e and impersonation and

eventually through each role being assumed by a different person.

13. Look at the four squares [█] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

To enhance their listeners’ enjoyment,storytellers continually make their stories more engaging and memorable.

Where would the sentence best fit?

TPO 1-3 Timberline Vegetation on mountains

Paragraph 5: Above the tree line there is a zone that is generally called alpine tundra. █Immediately adjacent to the timberline, the tundra consists of a fairly complete cover of low-lying shrubs, herbs, and grasses, while higher up the number and diversity of species decrease until there is much bare ground with occasional mosses and lichens and some prostrate cushion plants. █Some plants can even survive in favorable microhabitats above the snow line. The highest plants in the world occur at around 6,100 meters on Makalu in the Himalayas. █At this great height, rocks, warmed by the sun, melt small snowdrifts. █

13. Look at the four squares [█] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

This explains how, for example, alpine cushion plants have been found growing at an altitude of 6,180 meters.

TPO 2-1 The Origins of Cetaceans

Extinct but already fully marine cetaceans are known from the fossil record. ■How was the gap between a walking mammal and a swimming whale bridged? ■Missing until recently were fossils clearly intermediate, or transitional, between land mammals and cetaceans.

■Very exciting discoveries have finally allowed scientists to reconstruct the most likely origins of cetaceans.■In 1979, a team looking for fossils in northern Pakistan found what proved to be the oldest fossil whale. The fossil was officially named Pakicetus in honor of the country where the discovery was made. Pakicetus was found embedded in rocks formed from river deposits that were 52 million years old. The river that formed these deposits was actually not far from an ancient ocean known as the Tethys Sea.

12. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence can be added to the passage.

This is a question that has puzzled scientists for ages.

Where would the sentence best fit?

TPO 2-2 Desert Formation

Paragraph 7: ■The raising of livestock is a major economic activity in semiarid lands, where grasses are generally the dominant type of natural vegetation. ■The consequences of an excessive number of livestock grazing in an area are the reduction of the vegetation cover and the trampling and pulverization of the soil. ■This is usually followed by the drying of the soil and accelerated erosion. ■

12. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence can be added to the passage.

This economic reliance on livestock in certain regions makes large tracts of land susceptible to overgrazing.

Where would the sentence best fit?

TPO 2-3 Early Cinema

Paragraph 3: ■Exhibitors, however, wanted to maximize their pr ofits, which they could do more readily by projecting a handful of films to hundreds of customers at a time (rather than one at a time) and by charging 25 to 50 cents admission. ■About a year after the opening of the first Kinetoscope parlor in 1894, showmen such as Louis and Auguste Lumiere,

Thomas Armat and Charles Francis Jenkins, and Orville and Woodville Latham (with the assistance of Edison's former assistant, William Dickson) perfected projection devices.■These early projection devices were used in vaudeville theaters, legitimate theaters, local town halls, makeshift storefront theaters, fairgrounds, and amusement parks to show films to a mass audience. ■

12. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence can be added to the passage

When this widespread use of projection technology began to hurt his Kinetoscope business, Edison acquired a projector developed by Armat and introduced it as “Edison’s latest marvel, the Vitascope."

Where would the sentence best fit?

TPO 3-1 Architecture

Paragraph 5: █Modern architectural forms generally have three separate components comparable to elements of the human body; a supporting skeleton or frame, an outer skin enclosing the interior spaces, and equipment, similar to the body’s vital organs and systems. █The

equipment includes plumbing, electrical wiring, hot water, and air-conditioning. █Of course in early architecture—such as igloos and adobe structures—there was no such equipment, and the skeleton and skin were often one. █

13．Look at the four squares [█] t hat indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

However, some modern architectural designs, such as those using folded plates of concreter or air-inflated structures, are again unifying skeleton and skin.

Where would the sentence best fit?

TPO-3-2 Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer

Paragraph 5: The reaction of farmers to the inevitable depletion of the Ogallala varies. Many have been attempting to conserve water by irrigating less frequently or by switching to crops that require less water. █Others, however, have adopted the philosophy that it is best to use the water while it is still economically profitable to do so and to concentrate on high-value crops such as cotton. █The incentive of the farmers who

wish to conserve water is reduced by their knowledge that many of their neighbors are profiting by using great amounts of water, and in the process are drawing down the entire region’s water supplies. █

Paragraph 6: In the face of the upcoming water supply crisis, a number of grandiose schemes have been developed to transport vast quantities of water by canal or pipeline from the Mississippi, the Missouri, or the Arkansas rivers. █Unfortunately, the cost of water obtained through any of these schemes would increase pumping costs at least tenfold, making the cost of irrigated agricultural products from the region uncompetitive on the national and international markets. Somewhat more promising have been recent experiments for releasing capillary water (water in the soil) above the water table by injecting compressed air into the ground. Even if this process proves successful, however, it would almost triple water costs. Genetic engineering also may provide a partial solution, as new strains of drought-resistant crops continue to be developed. Whatever the final answer to the water crisis may be, it is evident that within the High Plains, irrigation water will never again be the abundant, inexpensive resource it was during the agricultural boom years of the mid-twentieth century.

13．Look at the four squares [█] that indicate where the following

sentence could be added to the passage

But even if uncooperative farmers were to join in the conservation efforts, this would only delay the depletion of the aquifer.

Where would the sentence best fit? Click on a square to add the sentence to the passage.

TPO-3-2 Long-term ecosystem stability

Paragraph 6: █Ecologists are especially interested to know what factors contribute to the resilience of communities because climax communities all over the world are being severely damaged or destroyed by human activities. █The destruction caused by th e volcanic explosion of Mount St. Helens, in the northwestern United States, for example, pales in comparison to the destruction caused by humans. █We need to know what aspects of a community are most important to the community’s resistance to destruction, a s well as its recovery. █

13．Look at the four squares [█] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

In fact, damage to the environment by humans is often much more severe than damage by natural events and processes.

Where would the sentence best fit? Click on a square to add the sentence to the passage

TPO 4-1 Deer Populations of the Puget Sound

Paragraph 2: Nearly any kind of plant of the forest understory can be part of a deer's diet. Where the forest inhibits the growth of grass and other meadow plants, the black-tailed deer browses on huckleberry, salal, dogwood, and almost any other shrub or herb. But this is fair-weather feeding. What keeps the black-tailed deer alive in the harsher seasons of plant decay and dormancy? One compensation for not hibernating is the built-in urge to migrate. █Deer may move from high-elevation browse areas in summer down to the lowland areas in late fall. █Even with snow on the ground, the high bushy understory is exposed; also snow and wind bring down leafy branches of cedar, hemlock, red alder, and other arboreal fodder.

Paragraph 3: █The numbers of deer have fluctuated markedly since the entry of Europeans into Puget Sound country. █The early explorers and settlers told of abundant deer in the early 1800s and yet almost in the same breath bemoaned the lack of this succulent game animal. Famous explorers of the north American frontier, Lewis and Clark arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River on November 14, 1805, in nearly starved

circumstances. They had experienced great difficulty finding game west of the Rockies and not until the second of December did they kill their first elk. To keep 40 people alive that winter, they consumed approximately 150 elk and 20 deer. And when game moved out of the lowlands in early spring, the expedition decided to return east rather than face possible starvation. Later on in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Fort Vancouver became the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, deer populations continued to fluctuate. David Douglas, Scottish botanical explorer of the 1830s, found a disturbing change in the animal life around the fort during the period between his first visit in 1825 and his final contact with the fort in 1832. A recent Douglas biographer states:" The deer which once picturesquely dotted the meadows around the fort were gone [in 1832], hunted to extermination in order to protect the crops."

13．Look at the four squares [█] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

There food is available and accessible throughout the winter.

TPO-4-3 Petroleum Resources

Paragraph 2: Continued sedimentation—the process of deposits’ settling on the sea bottom—buries the organic matter and subjects it to higher temperatures and pressures, which convert the organic matter to oil and gas. █As muddy sediments are pressed together, the gas and small droplets of oil may be squeezed out of the mud and may move into sandy layers nearby. █Over long periods of time (millions of years), accumulations of gas and oil can collect in the sandy layers. █Both oil and gas are less dense than water, so they generally tend to rise upward through water-saturated rock and sediment. █

13.Look at the four squares [█] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

Unless something acts to halt this migration,these natural resources will eventually reach the surface.

TPO-5-2 The Origin of the Pacific Island People Paragraph 2: Speculation on the origin of these Pacific islanders began as soon as outsiders encountered them, in the absence of solid linguistic, archaeological, and biological data, many fanciful and mutually exclusive theories were devised. Pacific islanders are variously thought to have come from North America, South America, Egypt, Israel, and India, as well as Southeast Asia. ■Many older theories implicitly deprecated the navigational abilities and overall cultural creativity of the Pacific islanders. ■For example, British a nthropologists G. Elliot Smith and W. J. Perry assumed that only Egyptians would have been skilled enough to navigate and colonize the Pacific. ■They inferred that the Egyptians even crossed the Pacific to found the great civilizations of the New World (North and South America). ■ In 1947 Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl drifted on a balsa-log raft westward with the winds and currents across the Pacific from South America to prove his theory that Pacific islanders were Native Americans (also called American Indians). Later Heyerdahl suggested that the Pacific was peopled by three migrations: by Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest of North America drifting to Hawaii, by Peruvians drifting to Easter Island, and by Melanesians. In 1969 he crossed the Atlantic in an Egyptian-style reed boat to prove Egyptian influences in the Americas. Contrary to these theorists, the overwhelming evidence of physical anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology shows that the Pacific

islanders came from Southeast Asia and were skilled enough as navigators to sail against the prevailing winds and currents.

13. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

Later theories concentrate on journeys in the other direction.

TPO-6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution

Paragraph 3: █Watt's steam engine soon showed what it could do. █It liberated industry from dependence on running water. █The engine eliminated water in the mines by driving efficient pumps, which made possible deeper and deeper mining. █The ready availability of coal inspired William Murdoch during the 1790s to develop the first new form of nighttime illumination to be discovered in a millennium and a half. Coal gas rivaled smoky oil lamps and flickering candles, and early in the new century, well-to-do Londoners grew accustomed to gaslit houses and even streets. Iron manufacturers, which had starved for fuel while depending on charcoal, also benefited from ever-increasing supplies of coal: blast furnaces with steam-powered bellows turned out more iron and steel for the new machinery. Steam became the motive force of the Industrial Revolution as coal and iron ore were the raw materials.

12.Look at the four squares [█] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage．

The factories did not have to go to the streams when power could come to the factories.

TPO-6-2 William Smith

Paragraph 5: Not only could Smith identify rock strata by the fossils they contained, he could also see a pattern emerging: certain fossils always appear in more ancient sediments, while others begin to be seen as the strata become more recent. █By following the fossils, Smith was able to put all the strata of England's earth into relative temporal sequence. █About the same time, Georges Cuvier made the same discovery while studying the rocks around Paris. █Soon it was realized that this principle of faunal (animal) succession was valid not only in England or France but virtually everywhere. █It was actually a principle of floral succession as well, because plants showed the same transformation through time as did fauna. Limestone may be found in the Cambrian or—300 million years later—in the Jurassic strata, but a trilobite—the ubiquitous marine arthropod that had its birth in the Cambrian—will never be found in Jurassic strata, nor a dinosaur in the Cambrian.

13.Look at the four squares [█]that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage

The findings of these geologists inspired others to examine the rock and fossil records in different parts of the world．

TPO-7-1 The Geologic History of the Mediterranean

Paragraph 2 ■Another task for the Glomar Challenger’s scientists was to try to determine the origin of the domelike masses buried deep beneath the Mediterranean seafloor. ■These structures had been detected years earlier by echo-sounding instruments, but they had never been penetrated in the cour se of drilling. ■Were they salt domes such as are common along the United States Gulf Coast, and if so, why should there have been so much solid crystalline salt beneath the floor of the Mediterranean? ■

12. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate whe re the following sentence could be added to the passage.

Thus, scientists had information about the shape of the domes but not about their chemical composition and origin.

TPO-7-2 Ancient Rome and Greece

Paragraph 4: Modern attitudes to Roman civilization range from the infinitely impressed to the thoroughly disgusted. ■As always, there are the power worshippers, especially among historians, who are predisposed to admire whatever is strong,who feel more attracted to the might of Rome than to the subtlety of Greece. ■At the same time, there is a solid body of opinion that dislikes Rome. ■For many, Rome is at best the imitator and the continuator of Greece on a larger scale. ■Greek civilization had quality; Rome, mere quantity. Greece was original; Rome, derivative. Greece had style; Rome had money. Greece was the inventor; Rome, the research and development division. Such indeed was the opinion of some of the more intellectual Romans. ―Had the Greeks held novelty in such disdain as we,‖asked Horace in his epistle, ―what work of ancient date would now exist?‖

13. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

They esteem symbols of Roman power, such as the massive Colosseum.

TPO-7-3 Agriculture, Iron, and the Bantu Peoples

Paragraph 6: The diffusion of agriculture and later of iron was accompanied by a great movement of people who may have carried these innovations. These people probably originated in eastern Nigeria. ■Their migration may have been set in motion by an increase in population caused by a movement of peoples fleeing the desiccation, or drying up, of the Sahara. ■They spoke a language, proto-Bantu (―Bantu‖ means ―the people‖), which is the parent tongue of a language of a large number of Bantu languages still spoken throughout sub-Sahara Africa. Why and how these people spread out into central and southern Africa remains a mystery, but archaeologists believe that their iron weapons allowed them to conquer their hunting-gathering opponents, who still used stone implements. ■Still, the process is uncertain, and peaceful migration—or simply rapid demographic growth—may have also caused the Bantu explosion. ■

13. Look at the four squares ■ that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

These people had a significant linguistic impact on the continent as well.

TPO-8-1 Extinction of Dinosaurs

Paragraph 5: Ir has not been common at Earth’s since the very beginning of the planet’s history. Because it usually exists in a metallic state, it was preferentially incorporated in Earth’s core as the planet cooled and consolidated. Ir is found in high concentrations in some meteorites, in which the solar system’s original chemical composition is preserved. Even today, microscopic meteorites continually bombard Earth, falling on both land and sea. By measuring how many of these meteorites fall to Earth over a given period of time, scientists can estimate how long it might have taken to deposit the observed amount of Ir in the boundary clay. ■ These calculations suggest that a period of about one million years would have been required. ■However, other rel iable evidence suggests that the deposition of the boundary clay could not have taken one million years. ■So the unusually high concentration of Ir seems to require a special explanation. ■

13. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the followin g sentence could be added to the passage.

Consequently, the idea that the Ir in the boundary clay came from microscopic meteorites cannot be accepted.

TPO-8-2 Running water in Mars

Paragraph 2: Outflow channels are probably relics of catastrophic flooding on Mars long ago. ■They appear only in equatorial regions and generally do not form extensive interconnected networks. ■Instead, they are probably the paths taken by huge volumes of water draining from the southern highlands into the northern plains. ■The onrushing water arising from these flash floods likely also formed the odd teardrop-shaped ―islands‖ (resembling the miniature versions seen in the wet sand of our beaches at low tide) that have been found on the plains close to the ends of the outflow channels. ■Judging from the width and depth of the channels, the flow rates must have been truly enormous—perhaps as much as a hundred times greater than the 105 tons per second carried by the great Amazon river. Flooding shaped the outflow channels approximately 3 billion years ago, about the same times as the northern volcanic plains formed.

12. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

These landscape features differ from runoff channels in a number of ways.

TPO9-1

Paragraph 1: It has long been accepted that the Americas were colonized by a migration of peoples from Asia, slowly traveling across a land bridge called Beringia (now the Bering Strait between northeastern Asia and Alaska) during the last Ice Age. ■The first water craft theory about the migration was that around 11,000-12,000 years ago there was an ice-free corridor stretching from eastern Beringia to the areas of North America south of the great northern glaciers. It was the midcontinental corridor between two massive ice sheets-the Laurentide to the west-that enabled the southward migration. ■But belief in this ice-free corridor began to crumble when paleoecologist Glen MacDonald demonstrated that some of the most important radiocarbon dates used to support the existence of an ice-free corridor were incorrect. ■He persuasively argued that such an ice-free corridor did not exist until much later, when the continental ice began its final retreat.■

13. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

Moreover, other evidence suggests that even if an ice-free corridor did exist, it would have lacked the resources needed for human colonization.

Where could the sentence best fit?

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