【TPO小站内部资料】托福阅读真题背景汇总
托福阅读的关键是在于多看多练，同样一篇文章，如果熟悉其中背景，阅读起来就比较轻松，做题的速度和准确率也会提高不少。下面，我将根据历年托福阅读真题，总结出一部分常见托福阅读背景，希望对大家有所帮助。
一、印第安题材
1.白令海峡移民理论
2.印第安文化
3.印第安宗教观
4.印第安建筑业：大、先进。
5.印第安手工业：好。
6.社会组织结构：严密、分工细、凝聚力强。
7.农业先进：A. irrigation; B. maize, squash, bean, pea。
二、动植物题材(必考)
1.植物学题材(一般纯植物学不多)
a. 地衣、苔、真菌、蘑菇最常见。
b. 树冠上方生物。
c. 植物在生态平衡中的作用（或作为平衡生态系统的手段）。
2.动物学题材(90%以上)
a. 考普通动物为多。最近常考鸟类、蚂蚁、动物智能与灭绝(联系天文学与冰河理论)。
b. 考动物进化(evolution)。
c. 考动物的分类(classification)。
phyla(单数phylum) —门 class—纲 order—目 family—科 genus—属species—种 carnivore/predator—食肉动物 herbivore—食草动物 omnivore —杂食动物
d. 动物的生活习性最为多见。
1. 群居(social animal)动物的习性
a) 蚂蚁：社会组织结构—等级制(hierarchy)：交流方式—信息素—气味；生活来源；外来物种的有害性。
b) 蜜蜂：群居个性；圆舞（食物较近时）摇摆舞（waggle dance食物较远时）；蜜蜂智能；防御；天敌—大黄蜂。
c) 大猩猩：智能：猩际关系
2.迁徙 (migration)
野鸭、大雁：日照长短；辨别方向。
3. 伪装 (camouflage)、花拟态(mimicry )
三、考古学(archaeology)题材
1.文化(cultural) 考古学
形态(physical)考古学(多见)
2.化石(fossil)
a) 化石构成。化石比原物更沉重 (矿物质环境)
b) 化石形成原因。坚硬物质，迅速掩埋。
c) 化石与动物的进化关系。
3.人的左右手
a) 使用工具。证据：敲击的划痕；手柄的形状。
b) 牙齿上的划痕。
c) 大脑左右半球的大小差别；趾骨的粗细差别。
d) 作画时人像的方向
4.古代陶瓷的考古
Clay, model, wheel (转盘 ), glaze, kiln
5.古代文字的考古
四、艺术（Art）题材
1.绘画（painting）
a）分类：雕刻（engrave）；岩洞艺术（cave art）；油画等。
b）材料：颜料（pigment）；蜡（wax）；画布（canvas）。
c）画法：透视法（perspective）。
2.陶器（pottery）
3.建筑（architecture）
a）要素：空间；质量（mass）；线条；纹理（texture）；光线；色彩。
b）风格：现实（realistic）；自然（naturalistic）；印象派（impressionist ic）
4.摄影（photography）
5.音乐（music）
五、美国历史题材
1.美国发展线索
a) 发现美洲阶段
哥伦布(意)，为黄金、茶叶、香料
West/East Indian
影响：世界观变化；国家形势变化；(爱尔兰——土豆饥荒 )
b) 英国定居阶段(English settlement )
1607第一个定居点Captain John S影响清教徒
1620五月花号
c) 殖民时期(colonial era)
d) 独立战争(American Revolution)
e) 新的国家(new nation) 南北不均衡
f) 南北战争(Civil War)
g) 战后重建。持续近100年。
h) 西进运动 (Westward movement)人口迁移之类
i) 工业化大增长
j) world war I & II
End ：1960
2.“大熔炉”：地理位置；民族融合1960’s；文化融合。
3.邮政。快递和铁路邮政
综上所述，托福阅读考试范围非常之广，对知识面要求相对较高，如果能够适当补充相关背景知识，那么在考场上做题时也不会特别慌张和头疼了。同时，能够了解各方面的知识也是托福考试的魅力所在，在复习过程中大家还能丰富各学科知识，何乐而不为！
TPO4 inhibit=restrict 限制，禁止inthesamebreath=immediately 立即 indefiniteperiod=whoseendhasnotbeendetermined rebound=recovery 复原，重获 amarkeddegree=aconsiderabledegree 很大程度上principal=major 主要的 environmentaltrappings=environmentaldecorations accumulate=buildup 累积adjacent=nearby 临近的sloping=inclining 倾斜的foul=pollute 污染 TPO5 exhibit=show 展示facilitate=makeeasier 促进suspended=hung 悬浮的afford=offer 提供，支付的起overwhelming=powerful 有力的，强大的implement=tool 工具undisputed=acknowledged 认可的，无可争议的significant=important 重要的不定期的装饰 relatively=comparatively 相对地
diversification=emergenceofmanyvarieties 多样化promote=encourage 激励 TPO6 exploit=utilize 利用vastly=greatly 极大地，深 远地growaccustomedto=becomeusedto 习惯于 retain=maintain 保持rudimentary=basic 基础的meticulously=carefully 仔细地，严谨地 endure=survive 忍受，存活virtually=nearly 事实 上，几乎plausible=believable 可信的 phenomenon=occurrence 现象，发生的事件 critically=fundamentally 根本地 perspective=viewpoint 观点 TPO7 objective=purpose 目的 scoresof=largenumbersof 大量的turbulent=violent 暴力的obsessionwith=fixationon 痴迷于 foster=encourage 培育，激励sphere=area 范围diffuse=spread 传播 profound=far-reaching 深远地 ritual=ceremonial 仪式flee=runawayfrom 逃避 TPO8 massive=verylarge 大量的 pinpoint=identifyprecisely 精确描述，精确定位ingenuity=cleverness 精巧predominant=principal 主 要的cope=adapt 处理，适应 fluctuation=variation 变化，波动bombard=strike 敲 击，轰炸disruption=disturbance 干扰
1: The amount of air exchanged is even lower in REM than NREM because, although breathing is more rapid in REM, it is also more irregular, with brief episodes of shallow breathing or absence of breathing. ○Because breathing is more shallow and irregular in REM than in NREM, less air is exchanged in REM. ○Breathing in NREM is less effective than breathing in REM because of irregular episodes of rapid breathing during NREM. ○Because breathing is more rapid in NREM sleep than in REM sleep, breathing often becomes shallow. ○Although REM has brief episodes of shallow breathing or lack of breathing, breathing is more rapid than in NREM. 2: Fladmark’s hypothesis received additional support form from the fact that the greatest diversity in native American languages occurs along the west coast of the Americas, suggesting that this region has been settled the longest.
TPO1: Dramatic 剧烈的，戏剧化的–- striking显著的、突出的、惊人的Prevalent普遍的，常见的–- predictable可预见的Championed 拥护、支持–- Supported Attributes把。。。归于-- ascribes Autonomous 自主的、自治的、自发的–independent Penchant倾向、嗜好、趣味-- inclination倾向 Incredible令人难以置信的-- Unbelievable Out of sight看不见、在视野之外-- hidden Overlie 躺在 . 。。。上面，覆盖在。。。上面-- Cover So much for–That is enough about Plugged插入、填满–filled up TPO2: Threatened – endangered Delicate易碎的、纤弱的– fragile易碎的 Progressively渐进的、日益增多的– increasingly Devoid of没有、缺乏– lacking in Precious宝贵的、珍贵的– valuable Exposed 暴露的–visible Propulsion推进–moving forward Readily 轻而易举的–easily Assistance帮助– help Expanded扩充的、展开的–was enlarged TPO3: Feasible可行的– achievable Enhance增加、提高– improve Devised设计、发明– created Integral完整的、必须的– essential基本的、必要的 Arduous艰巨的、困难的– difficult Ensuring跟随，接下来– subsequent Unprecedented 史无前例的–unlike anything in the past Virtually几乎、实际上、事实上–almost
0308托福试题 阅读（55minutes） Question 1-11 If food is allowed to stand for some time, it putrefies .When the putrefied material is examined microscopically ,it is found to be teeming with bacteria. Where do these bacteria come from , since they are not seen in fresh food? Even until the mid-nineteenth century, many people believed that such microorganisms originated by spontaneous (5 ) generation ,a hypothetical process by which living organisms develop from nonliving matter. The most powerful opponent of the theory of spontaneous generation was the French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur(1822-1895).Pasteur showed that structures present in air closely resemble the microorganisms seen in putrefying materials .He did (10) this by passing air through guncotton filters, the fibers of which stop solid particles. After the guncotton was dissolved in a mixture of alcohol and ether, the particles that it had trapped fell to the bottom of the liquid and were examined on a microscope slide .Pasteur found that in ordinary air these exists a variety of solid structures ranging in size from 0.01 mm to more than 1.0 mm .Many of these bodies resembled the reproductive (15)structures of common molds, single-celled animals, and various other microbial cells . As many as 20 to 30 of them were found in fifteen liters of ordinary air ,and they could not be distinguished from the organisms found in much larger numbers in putrefying materials .Pasteur concluded that the organisms found in putrefying materials originated from the organized bodies present in the air .He postulated that these bodies are constantly (20)being deposited on all objects. Pasteur showed that if a nutrient solution was sealed in a glass flask and heated to boiling to destroy all the living organisms contaminating it, it never putrefied .The proponents of spontaneous generation declared that fresh air was necessary for spontaneous generation and that the air inside the sealed flask was affected in some way (25)by heating so that it would no longer support spontaneous generation. Pasteur constructed a swan-necked flask in which putrefying materials could he heated to boiling, but air could reenter. The bends in the neck prevented microorganisms from getting in the flask.. Material sterilized in such a flask did not putrefy. 1,What does the passage mainly discuss? (a)Pasteur’s influence on the development of the microscope. (b)The origin of the theory of spontaneous generation . (c)The effects of pasteurization on food. (d)Pasteur’s argument agai nst the theory of spontaneous generation . 2,The phrase “teeming with ”in line 2 is closest in meaning to (a)full of (b)developing into (c)resistant to (d)hurt by 3,Which of the following questions did the theory of spontaneous generation attempt to answer? (a)What is the origin of the living organisms are seen on some food? (b)How many types of organisms can be found on food? (c)What is the most effective way to prepare living organisms for microscopic examination? (d)How long can food stand before it putrefies? 4,The word “resemble” in line 9 is closest in meaning to
小编发布托福TPO46阅读本文+答案，希望帮助考生对照文本更好的研究真题，充分备考，争取理想成绩，实现留学梦想。 1. The Origins of Writing It was in Egypt and Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) that civilization arose, and it is there that we find the earliest examples of that key feature of civilization, writing. These examples, in the form of inscribed clay tablets that date to shortly before 3000 B.C.E., have been discovered among the archaeological remains of the Sumerians, a gifted people settled in southern Mesopotamia. The Egyptians were not far behind in developing writing, but we cannot follow the history of their writing in detail because they used a perishable writing material. In ancient times the banks of the Nile were lined with papyrus plants, and from the papyrus reeds the Egyptians made a form of paper; it was excellent in quality but, like any paper, fragile. Mesopotamia’s rivers boasted no such useful reeds, but its land did provide good clay, and as a consequence the clay tablet became the standard material. Though clumsy and bulky it has a virtue dear to archaeologists: it is durable. Fire, for example, which is death to papyrus paper or other writing materials such as leather and wood, simply bakes it hard, thereby making it even more durable. So when a conqueror set a Mesopotamian palace ablaze, he helped ensure the survival of any clay tablets in it. Clay, moreover, is cheap, and forming it into tablets is easy, factors that helped the clay tablet become the preferred writing material not only throughout Mesopotamia but far outside it as well, in Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and even for a while in Crete and Greece. Excavators have unearthed clay tablets in all
托福TPO46阅读文本+题目+答案 1. The Origins of Writing It was in Egypt and Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) that civilization arose, and it is there that we find the earliest examples of that key feature of civilization, writing. These examples, in the form of inscribed clay tablets that date to shortly before 3000 B.C.E., have been discovered among the archaeological remains of the Sumerians, a gifted people settled in southern Mesopotamia. The Egyptians were not far behind in developing writing, but we cannot follow the history of their writing in detail because they used a perishable writing material. In ancient times the banks of the Nile were lined with papyrus plants, and from the papyrus reeds the Egyptians made a form of paper; it was excellent in quality but, like any paper, fragile. Mesopotamia’s rivers boasted no such useful reeds, but its land did provide good clay, and as a consequence the clay tablet became the standard material. Though clumsy and bulky it has a virtue dear to archaeologists: it is durable. Fire, for example, which is death to papyrus paper or other writing materials such as leather and wood, simply bakes it hard, thereby making it even more durable. So when a conqueror set a Mesopotamian palace ablaze, he helped ensure the survival of any clay tablets in it. Clay, moreover, is cheap, and forming it into tablets is easy, factors that helped the clay tablet become the preferred writing material not only throughout Mesopotamia but far outside it as well, in Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and even for a while in Crete and Greece. Excavators have unearthed clay tablets in all these lands. In the Near East they remained in use for more than two and a half millennia, and in certain areas they lasted down to the beginning of the common era until finally yielding, once and for all, to more convenient alternatives. The Sumerians perfected a style of writing suited to clay. This script consists of simple shapes, basically just wedge shapes and lines that could easily be incised in soft clay with a reed or wooden stylus; scholars have dubbed it cuneiform from the wedge-shaped marks (cunei in Latin) that are its hallmark Although the ingredients are merely wedges and lines, there are hundreds of combinations of these basic forms that stand for different sounds or words. Learning these complex signs required long training and much practice; inevitably, literacy was largely limited to a small professional class, the scribes. The Akkadians conquered the Sumerians around the middle of the third millennium B.C.E., and they took over the various cuneiform signs used for writing Sumerian and gave them sound and word values that fit their own language. The Babylonians and Assyrians did the same, and so di d peoples in Syria and Asia Minor. ■ The literature of the Sumerians was treasured throughout the Near East, and long after Sumerian ceased to be spoken, the Babylonians and Assyrians and others kept it alive as a literary language, the way Europeans kept Latin alive after the fall of Rome. ■For the scribes of these non-Sumerian languages, training was doubly demanding since they had to know the values of the various cuneiform signs for Sumerian as well as for their own language. ■The contents of the earliest clay tablets are simple notations of numbers of commodities—animals, jars, baskets, etc. Writing, it would appear, started as a primitive form of bookkeeping. Its use soon widened to document the multitudinous
为了帮助大家高效备考托福，为大家带来托福TPO45阅读Passage1原文文本+题目+答案解析，希望对大家备考有所帮助。 Microscopes The Beringia Landscape During the peak of the last ice age,northeast Asia(Siberia)and Alaska were connected by a broad land mass called the Bering Land Bridge.This land bridge existed because so much of Earth’s water was frozen in the great ice sheets that sea levels were over 100 meters lower than they are today.Between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago,Siberia,the Bering Land Bridge,and Alaska shared many environmental characteristics.These included a common mammalian fauna of large mammals,a common flora composed of broad grasslands as well as wind-swept dunes and tundra,and a common climate with cold,dry winters and somewhat warmer[没有wanner这个单词和summer搭配哈，我觉得应该是转码故障导致的问题，应该是warmer。]summers.The recognition that many aspects of the modem flora and fauna were present on both sides of the Bering Sea as remnants of the ice-age landscape led to this region being named Beringia. It is through Beringia that small groups of large mammal hunters,slowly expanding their hunting territories,eventually colonized North and South America.On this archaeologists generally agree,but that is where the agreement stops.One broad area of disagreement in explaining the peopling of the Americas is the domain of paleoecologists,but it is critical to understanding human history:what was Beringia like? The Beringian landscape was very different from what it is today.■A Broad,windswept valleys;glaciated mountains;sparse vegetation;and less moisture created a rather forbidding land mass.■B This land mass supported herds of now-extinct species of mammoth,bison,and horse and somewhat modern versions of caribou,musk ox,elk,and saiga antelope.■C These grazers supported in turn a number of impressive carnivores,including the giant short-faced bear,the saber-tooth cat,and a large species of lion.■D The presence of mammal species that require grassland vegetation has led Arctic biologist Dale Guthrie to argue that while cold and dry,there must have been broad areas of dense vegetation to support herds of mammoth,horse,and bison.Further,nearly all of the ice-age fauna had teeth that indicate an adaptation to grasses and sedges;they could not have been supported by a modern flora of mosses and lichens.Guthrie has also demonstrated that the landscape must have been subject to intense and continuous winds,especially in winter.He makes this argument based on the anatomy of horse and bison,which do not have the ability to search for food through deep snow cover.They need landscapes with strong winds that remove the winter snows,exposing the dry grasses beneath.Guthrie applied the term“mammoth steppe"to characterize this landscape.
小编发布托福TPO48阅读本文+答案，希望帮助考生对照文本更好的研究真题，充分备考，争取理想成绩，实现留学梦想。 Chinese Population Growth Increases in population have usually been accompanied (indeed facilitated) by an increase in trade. In the Western experience, commerce provided the conditions that allowed industrialization to get started, which in turn led to growth in science, technology, industry, transport, communications, social change, and the like that we group under the broad term of “development.” However, the massive increase in population that in Europe was at first attributed to industrialization starting in the eighteenth century occurred also and at the same period in China, even though there was no comparable industrialization. It is estimated that the Chinese population by 1600 was close to 150 million. The transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties (the seventeenth century) may have seen a decline, but from 1741 to 1851 the annual figures rose steadily and spectacularly, perhaps beginning with 143 million and ending with 432 million. If we accept these totals, we are confronted with a situation in which the Chinese population doubled in the 50 years from 1790 to 1840. If, with greater caution, we assume lower totals in the early eighteenth century and only 400 million in 1850, we still face a startling fact: something like a doubling of the vast Chinese population in the century before Western contact, foreign trade, and industrialization could have had much effect. To explain this sudden increase we cannot point to factors constant in Chinese society but must find conditions or a combination of factors that were
为了帮助大家高效备考托福，为大家带来托福TPO24阅读Passage1原文文本+题目+答案解析，希望对大家备考有所帮助。 ▉托福TPO24阅读Passage1原文文本： Lake Water Where does the water in a lake come from,and how does water leave it?Water enters a lake from inflowing rivers,from underwater seeps and springs,from overland flow off the surrounding land,and from rain falling directly on the lake surface.Water leaves a lake via outflowing rivers,by soaking into the bed of the lake,and by evaporation.So much is obvious. The questions become more complicated when actual volumes of water are considered:how much water enters and leaves by each route?Discovering the inputs and outputs of rivers is a matter of measuring the discharges of every inflowing and outflowing stream and river.Then exchanges with the atmosphere are calculated by finding the difference between the gains from rain,as measured(rather roughly)by rain gauges,and the losses by evaporation,measured with models that correct for the other sources of water loss.For the majority of lakes,certainly those surrounded by forests,input from overland flow is too small to have a noticeable effect.Changes in lake level not explained by river flows plus exchanges with the atmosphere must be due to the net difference between what seeps into the lake from the groundwater and what leaks into the groundwater.Note the word"net":measuring the actual amounts of groundwater seepage into the lake and out of the lake is a much more complicated matter than merely inferring their difference. Once all this information has been gathered,it becomes possible to judge whether a lake’s flow is mainly due to its surface inputs and outputs or to its underground inputs and outputs.If the former are greater,the lake is a surface-water-dominated lake;if the latter,it is a seepage-dominated lake.Occasionally,common sense tells you which of these two possibilities applies.For example,a pond in hilly country that maintains a steady water level all through a dry summer in spite of having no streams flowing into it must obviously be seepage dominated.Conversely,a pond with a stream flowing in one end and out the other,which dries up when the stream dries up,is clearly surface water dominated. By whatever means,a lake is constantly gaining water and losing water:its water does not just sit there,or,anyway,not for long.This raises the matter of a lake’s residence time.The residence time is the average length of time that any particular molecule of water remains in the lake,and it is calculated by dividing the volume of water in the lake by the rate at which water leaves the lake.The residence time is an average;the time spent in the lake by a given molecule(if we could follow its fate)would depend on the route it took:it might flow through as part of the