新托福TPO22阅读原文(一)：Spartina
TPO22-1：Spartina
Spartina alterniflora, known as cordgrass, is a deciduous, perennial flowering plant native to the Atlantic coast and the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is the dominant native species of the lower salt marshes along these coasts, where it grows in the intertidal zone (the area covered by water some parts of the day and exposed others).
These natural salt marshes are among the most productive habitats in the marine environment. Nutrient-rich water is brought to the wetlands during each high tide, making a high rate of food production possible. As the seaweed and marsh grass leaves die, bacteria break down the plant material, and insects, small shrimplike organisms, fiddler crabs, and marsh snails eat the decaying plant tissue, digest it, and excrete wastes high in nutrients. Numerous insects occupy the marsh, feeding on living or dead cordgrass tissue, and redwing blackbirds, sparrows, rodents, rabbits, and deer feed directly on the cordgrass. Each tidal cycle carries plant material into the offshore water to be used by the subtidal organisms.
Spartina is an exceedingly competitive plant. It spreads primarily by underground stems; colonies form when pieces of the root system or whole plants float into an area and take root or when seeds float into a suitable area and germinate. Spartina establishes itself on substrates ranging from sand and silt to gravel and cobble and is tolerant of salinities ranging from that of near freshwater (0.05 percent) to that of salt water (3.5 percent). Because they lack oxygen, marsh sediments are high in sulfides that are toxic to most plants. Spartina has the ability to take up sulfides and convert them to sulfate, a form of sulfur that the plant can use; this ability makes it easier for the grass to colonize marsh environments. Another adaptive advantage is Spartina’s ability to use carbon dioxide more efficiently than most other plants.
These characteristics make Spartina a valuable component of the estuaries where it occurs naturally. The plant functions as a stabilizer and a sediment trap and as a
nursery area for estuarine fish and shellfish. Once established, a stand of Spartina begins to trap sediment, changing the substrate elevation, and eventually the stand evolves into a high marsh system where Spartina is gradually displaced by higher-elevation, brackish-water species. As elevation increases, narrow, deep channels of water form throughout the marsh. Along the east coast Spartina is considered valuable for its ability to prevent erosion and marshland deterioration; it is also used for coastal restoration projects and the creation of new wetland sites.
Spartina was transported to Washington State in packing materials for oysters transplanted from the east coast in 1894. Leaving its insect predators behind, the cordgrass has been spreading slowly and steadily along Washington’s tidal estuaries on the west coast, crowding out the native plants and drastically altering the landscape by trapping sediment. Spartina modifies tidal mudflats, turning them into high marshes inhospitable to the many fish and waterfowl that depend on the mudflats. It is already hampering the oyster harvest and the Dungeness crab fishery, and it interferes with the recreational use of beaches and waterfronts. Spartina has been transplanted to England and to New Zealand for land reclamation and shoreline stabilization. In New Zealand the plant has spread rapidly, changing mudflats with marshy fringes to extensive salt meadows and reducing the number and kinds of birds and animals that use the marsh.
Efforts to control Spartina outside its natural environment have included burning, flooding, shading plants with black canvas or plastic, smothering the plants with dredged materials or clay, applying herbicide, and mowing repeatedly. Little success has been reported in New Zealand and England; Washington State’s management program has tried many of these methods and is presently using the herbicide glyphosphate to control its spread. Work has begun to determine the feasibility of using insects as biological controls, but effective biological controls are considered years away. Even with a massive effort, it is doubtful that complete eradication of Spartina from nonnative habitats is possible, for it has become an integral part of these shorelines and estuaries during the last 100 to 200 years.
TPO22-1译文：米草属植物
互花米草，俗称网茅，是一种落叶的多年生开花植物，原产自美国大西洋沿岸和墨西哥湾地区。它是这些海岸下游地区盐碱地的优势本地种，生长在潮间带(有时淹没在水中，有时暴露在空气中的区域)。
这些天然的盐碱地位于海洋环境下最肥沃的生境中。涨潮时会给沼泽带来营养丰富的海水，使得高产量成为可能。随着海草和沼泽禾草叶子的死亡，细菌将植物体分解，昆虫、小型虾状浮游生物、招潮蟹和沼泽蜗牛吃掉了腐烂的植物组织，消化后排出富含营养的排泄物。沼泽里生活着无数的昆虫，它们以活着或死去的网茅组织为食，红翼歌鸫、麻雀、啮齿动物、兔子以及鹿都直接以网茅为食。每一个潮汐周期都会将植物带到近海海水中，它们可以被潮水下的生物所利用。
米草属植物是极具竞争力的植物。它主要通过地下茎向四周扩展;当根系或整株植物漂到一个地方扎了根，或者当种子漂到一个适合的地方发芽时，群落就形成了。从泥沙地到卵砾石地，米草属植物都能生长，其耐盐度在接近淡水(0.05%)和盐水(3.5%)的范围内。由于缺乏氧气，沼泽沉积物里的硫化物含量很高，，这些硫化物对多数植物而言是有毒的。米草属植物具有能够吸收硫化物并将其转换成为硫酸盐(一种植物可以利用的硫形式)的能力;这种能力使得米草属植物更易在沼泽环境中生存。另一个适应性优势就是米草属植物拥有比其它植物更能有效利用二氧化碳的能力。
这些特征使得在河口处自然生长的米草属植物成为了该地重要的组成部分。植物起到了稳定器和沉积物收集器的作用，而且还充当了河口鱼类和贝类的温床。一旦落地生根，米草属植物就开始截留沉积物，改变基质的海拔高度，最终这片米草属植物会逐渐被更高海拔的微咸淡水植物所取代，发展成了一个高海拔
的沼泽系统。随着海拔高度的增加，沼泽中会遍布狭窄深凹的水道。在东海岸，人们认为米属草非常有用，因为它有防止侵蚀和沼泽退化的能力，而且它还被用于海岸恢复计划和构筑新的湿地。
1894年，为了将牡蛎从东海岸转移到华盛顿州，米草属植物被打包运往华盛顿州。由于将天敌甩在了身后，网茅沿着西海岸华盛顿州的潮汐河口缓慢而稳定地传播开来，挤走了本地植物，并通过截留沉积物极大地改变了当地的景观。米草属植物改造了沿海滩涂，将其转变成高海拔沼泽，这些沼泽对很多依赖滩涂生活的鱼类和水禽并不适合。米草属植物已经妨碍了牡蛎的打捞以及珍宝蟹的养殖，它干扰了海滩和海滨的娱乐用途。人们将米草属植物移栽到英国和新西兰，用于改良土地以及稳定海岸线。在新西兰，米草属植物迅速蔓延，它改变了沼泽，将沼泽地的边缘变成了广阔的盐渍草地，并减少了在沼泽生活的鸟类和动物的数量。
为了控制米草属植物在自然生境以外的扩散，人们尝试了焚烧、水淹、用黑色的帆布或塑料布遮挡阳光、用疏浚物料或者粘土使其窒息、喷撒除草剂以及反复割草的方法。在新西兰和英国却鲜有成效，华盛顿州的管理项目尝试了很多此类方法，目前正在使用除草剂草甘膦控制它的传播。相关工作开始确定用昆虫进行生物防止的可行性，但是有效的生物防治还需要很多年。即使是付出巨大的努力，我们仍然怀疑完全从非原生境中根除米草属植物的可能性，因为在过去的100到200年间，它已经成为这些海岸线地带和河口的主要组成部分了。
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【王鑫托福阅读】托福TPO5-2阅读文本 TPO5 TPO5-2 The Origin of the Pacific Island People 1. According to paragraph 1, all of the following are true statements about Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia EXCEPT: A. Collectively, these regions are traditionally known as Oceania. B. These islands of Micronesia are small and spread out. C. Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand mark the boundaries of Polynesia. D. Melanesia is situated to the north of Micronesia. The greater Pacific region, traditionally called Oceania, consists of three cultural areas: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Melanesia, in the southwest Pacific, contains the large islands of New Guinea, the Solomons, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. Micronesia, the area north of Melanesia, consists primarily of small scattered islands. Polynesia is the central Pacific area in the great triangle defined by Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand. Before the arrival of Europeans, the islands in the two largest cultural areas, Polynesia and Micronesia, together contained a population estimated at 700,000. 2. By stating that the the ories are "mutually exclusive” the author means that A.if one of the theories is true, then all the others must be false B. the differences between the theories are unimportant C. taken together, the theories cover all possibilities D. the theories support each other
中文： 1. 旅游业不但给政府带来税收而且给很多人提供了就业机会。 2. 赌博不但对健康有害，而且会影响家庭和睦。 3. 打工不但能让学生赚零花钱，而且还能让他们学到人际交往的能力。 4. 现在很多学校的校服不但贵，而且还难看，质量不好。 5. 政府不但要多建一些公路，还要鼓励人们多使用公交车。 6. 老人们既不需要很多的钱，也不需要很大的房子，他们最需要的是子女的关心和照顾。 7. 我喜欢旅游，但是，我既没有钱，也没有时间。 8. 在老人院，老人既能够接受到医疗，又能够找到很多有共同话题，共同兴趣的的伙伴。 9. 缴税既是有有利于国家，也是有利于个人。因为政府的税收主要用于公共服务，这个是每个人都会受益的。 10. 打电脑游戏既浪费时间，又有害视力。 11. 打电脑游戏既能使人放松，又能锻炼大脑的灵活性，反映能力 12. 依照最近的一项调查，每年有4，000，000人死
于与吸烟有关的疾病。 13. 没有一项发明像互联网一样同时受到如此多的赞扬和批评。 14. 许多专家指出体育锻炼直接有助于身体健康。 15. 无可否认，空气污染是一个极其严重的问题：城市当局应该采取有力措施来解决它。 16. 考虑到问题的严重性，在事态进一步恶化之前，必须采取有效的措施。 17. 尽管这一观点被广泛接受，很少有证据表明飞机会造成灾难性的污染。 18. 没有人能否认：教育是人生最重要的一方面。 19. 事实上，我们必须承认生命的质量和生命本身一样重要。 20. 我们应该不遗余力地保护我们的环境。 21. 现在，人们普遍认为 22. 我同意后者，有如下理由： 23. 这一观点正受到越来越多人的质疑。 24. 使用自行车有助于人们的身体健康，并极大地缓解了交通阻塞。 25. 尽管自行车有许多明显的优点，但是它也存在它的问题。 26. 在速度和舒适度方面，自行车是无法和汽车、火
托福阅读难句专业翻译一 1. Wearing masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or supernatural beings, and mined the desired effect – success in hunt or battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun – as an actor might. 戴着面具身着盛装的人们，经常扮演各种其他人物、动物或超自然生灵，并且作为一个扮演者所能做的，就是期盼一个在狩猎或战役中获胜、降雨的来临，阳光的重现的结果。 2.But these factors do not account for the interesting question of how there came to be such a concentration of pregnant ichthyosaurs in a particular place very close to their time of giving birth. 但是这些事实不能解释这个令人感兴趣的问题，就是为什么在一个特殊的靠近他们出生的地方如此的集中了这么多怀孕的鱼龙。 3.A series of mechanical improvements continuing well into the nineteenth century, including the introduction of pedals to sustain tone or to soften it, the perfection of a metal frame, and steel wire of the finest quality, finally produced an instruments capable of myriad tonal effects from the most delicate harmonies to an almost orchestral fullness of sound, from a liquid, singing tone to a ship, percussive brilliance. 十九世纪一系列持续的机械进步，包括踏板的传入、金属结构的完善和钢丝最完美的质量，最后产生了一种能容纳无数音调-从最精致的和弦到一个成熟管弦的声音或从一个清澈的歌声到辉煌的敲击乐的效 果-的乐器。 4.Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1972 as “silent”, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word, silent. 虽然我们习惯于谈到1972年以前的电影是无声的，但用一句完全感性的话来说电影从来就不是没有声音的。 5.For a number of years the selection of music for each film program rested entirely in the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often the principal qualifications for holding such a position was not skill or taste so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical pieces. 多年以来电影音乐的选择程序完全掌握在导演和音乐督导手中，通常拥有这些权力的主要资格并非是自身的技艺和品味而更多的是因为拥有大量的个人音乐素材库。 6.Rather, they were made of a top layer of woolen or glazed worsted wool fabric, consisting of smooth, compact yarn from long wool fibers, dyed dark blue, green, or brown with a bottom layer of a coarser woolen material, either natural or a shade of yellow.
TOEFL阅读高难度句子举例解析及翻译 摘要：托福阅读中也会出现一些考验大家的托福阅读难句，遇到这些句子的时候，要在平时新托福阅读中注意积累，觉得用得到的要记下来，以下总结的托福阅读中的几个高难度句，希望对大家有所帮助。 "Sociologists have built on the distinction between expressive and instrumental ties to distinguish between two types of groups: primary and secondary. A primary group involves two or more people who enjoy a direct, intimate, cohesive relationship with one another. Expressive ties predominate in primary groups; we view the people as ends in themselves and valuable in their own right. A secondary group entails two or more people who are involved in an impersonal relationship and have come together for a specific, practical purpose. Instrumental ties predominate in secondary groups; we perceive people as means to ends rather than as ends in their own right. Sometimes primary group relationships evolve out of secondary group relationships." 很多同学，看到上面的“we view the people as ends in themselves”和“we perceive people as means to ends”就彻底晕菜了。这个其实是可以理解的，这两句话实际是哲学家Kant(康德)关于道德的哲学思想。我们先来看看康德是怎么说的： Humanity According to Kant, there are different ways to state what our duty is. One of them involves the idea of a law. Another involves the idea of humanity, or human reason. Morality says that you should never treat rational human beings merely as means to your end. Whenever you use someone’s skills or services to your own end, you should always also treat that person as an end in him- or herself. 翻译：康德认为，有不同的方式来陈述我们的职责。其中一个是涉及法律。另外一个是涉及人性和人道。道德论认为，你永远不应该把一个理性的人只是作为你达到你的目的中间手段。当你用其他的服务和技能作为你达到你的目的是，你应该尊重他们作为个体而不是你的手段而已。 分析：这里的mean实际上是一个途径，一个中间过程。如果我们把他人视为达成某种目标的中间途径,那就不是道德的。end在这里是终点，自身的结果。只有把他人视为end才是尊重别人才是道德的。 其实这个道理很简单。就是我们常说的：不已结婚为目的谈恋爱都是耍流氓。你不已结婚为目的，就是把女孩当成means了，所以很不道德。你如果是以结婚为目的话，就是当成ends了。
新托福TPO11阅读原文(一):Ancient Egyptian Sculpture TPO11-1：Ancient Egyptian Sculpture In order to understand ancient Egyptian art, it is vital to know as much as possible of the elite Egyptians' view of the world and the functions and contexts of the art produced for them. Without this knowledge we can appreciate only the formal content of Egyptian art, and we will fail to understand why it was produced or the concepts that shaped it and caused it to adopt its distinctive forms. In fact, a lack of understanding concerning the purposes of Egyptian art has often led it to be compared unfavorably with the art of other cultures: Why did the Egyptians not develop sculpture in which the body turned and twisted through space like classical Greek statuary? Why do the artists seem to get left and right confused? And why did they not discover the geometric perspective as European artists did in the Renaissance? The answer to such questions has nothing to do with a lack of skill or imagination on the part of Egyptian artists and everything to do with the purposes for which they were producing their art. The majority of three-dimensional representations, whether standing, seated, or kneeling, exhibit what is called frontality: they face straight ahead, neither twisting nor turning. When such statues are viewed in isolation, out of their original context and without knowledge of their function, it is easy to criticize them for their rigid attitudes that remained unchanged for three thousand years. Frontality is, however, directly related to the functions of Egyptian statuary and the contexts in which the statues were set up. Statues were created not for their decorative effect but to play a primary role in the cults of the gods, the king, and the dead. They were designed to be put in places where these beings could manifest themselves in order to be the recipients of ritual actions. Thus it made sense to show the statue looking ahead at what was happening in front of it, so that the living performer of the ritual could interact with the divine or deceased recipient. Very often such statues were enclosed in rectangular shrines or wall niches whose only opening was at the front, making it
【王鑫托福阅读】托福TPO全集之TPO23-3 TPO23 TPO23-3 Rock Art of the Australia Aborigines 1. The word "infrequent”in the passage is closest in meaning to A. puzzling B. uncommon C. questionable D. undocumented 2. According to paragraph 1, the twentieth-century approach to studying Australian rock art was different from earlier approaches because the twentieth-century approach A. recognized that many different groups of Aborigines created Australian rock art B. concentrated on a limited range of Aboriginal rock art C. examined Aboriginal art from an Aboriginal rather than from a European perspective D. focused more intensely on understanding and documenting rock art 3. The word "rela tively”in the passage is closest in meaning to A. completely B. comparatively
今天，环球托福为备考托福听力的考友们带来托福TPO听力文本翻译Lecture1Astronomy （上），帮助大家复习托福听力以及分析听力文章的重点通常出现在哪些关键词后。下面，请看环球托福分享的托福TPO听力文本： Geocentric&Heliocentric theory Narrator Listen to part of a lecture in a history of science class. Aristarchus-Heliocentric Theory Professor Ok, we have been talking about how throughout history, it was often difficult for people to give up ideas which have long been taken for granted as scientific truth, even if those ideas were false. In Astronomy, for example, the distinction between the solar system and the universe wasn’t clear until modern times. The ancient Greeks believed that what we called the solar system was in fact the entire universe, and that the universe was geocentric. Geocentric means Earth-centered, so the geocentric view holds that the Sun, the planets, and the stars, all revolve around the Earth, which is stationary. Of course, we now know that the planets, including Earth, revolve around the Sun, and that the solar system is only a tiny part of the universe. 托福TPO听力文本翻译 我们已经讨论过，纵观历史，当人们要放弃长久以来已经被理所当然地视为科学真理的观点，是如何的困难，即使这些观点是错的。例如，在天文学上，太阳系和宇宙的差别直到现代才分清楚。古希腊人认为我们现在所称的太阳系就是整个宇宙，而且整个宇宙是“地心”的。“地心”的意思就是以地球为中心，因此地心论认为太阳、行星和恒星都围绕静止的地球转动。我们现在当然知道，行星，包括地球，都围绕太阳转动，而太阳系也只是宇宙很小的一部分。 So, why did the ancient Greeks believe that the Earth was the center of the universe? Well, it made sense to them. Observations of the sky make it appear as if the Sun, the moon, and the stars all revolve around the Earth everyday, while the Earth itself stayed in one place. And this view is also supported by their philosophical and religious beliefs about the origin and structure of the universe. It was presented in the works of well-known Greek philosophers as early as the fourth century B.C.E., and the geocentric theory continue to prevail in Western thought for almost 2,000 years, until the 17th century. 托福TPO听力文本翻译 因此，为何古希腊人认为地球是宇宙的中心？嗯，因为这对他们来说有道理。对天空的观察让太阳、月亮和星星看上去就像是每天都围绕地球转动，而地球自身位置不变。这一观点也得到了哲学和宗教上关于宇宙起源和结构观念的支持。该观点在公元前四世纪那些众所周知的哲学家的著作中均有阐述。地心说在西方流行了近2000年，直到17世纪。 Now, what’s especially interesting is that when astronomical observations were made that seemed to be inconsistent with the geocentric view, the ancient Greeks did not really consider alternative theories. It was so intuitive, so sensible that the Earth was the center of the universe that astronomers found ways to explain those seemingly inconsistent phenomena within the geocentric view.
精选45句托福阅读长难句翻译及词汇注释 （涵盖部分句子简化题翻译） 1.The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment（沉积物）-laden（装满的）river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing（沉积）the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope（斜面）. 虽然是较为小型的，但类似的事情也在当下发生，无论什么地方的、大量携带沉积物的河水或溪流从山谷中流至较为平坦的地带，都会随着流速的减慢会沉淀下它的携带物。 河流通常以扇形蔓延，使沉积物以一种平滑的扇形斜面的形式沉积。 2.In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie（躺在某上） what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they ar e now below the water’s upper surface (the water table), the gravels （石子，砂砾）and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars（沙洲，堤坝）, will be saturated（浸湿）with groundwater. 在地势较低的城市里，地面上几乎所有曾是河床的地方都被土壤掩埋。如果曾是河床的地方现在处于河流（的上表面）之下，旧时河床的石砾、沙子和沙洲就会被地表水浸湿。 3.But note that porosity（孔隙度）is not the same as permeability（渗透率）, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities（腔，洞）and the crevices （裂缝，缺口）linking them. 但是要注意的在测量水可以从一种材料间通过的轻松程度的时候，孔隙度并不等同于渗透率。这个要依材料中每个独立的洞和裂缝的大小而定。 4.If the pores（毛孔，气孔）are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain（使液体流走）away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films（薄膜）, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held. 如果气孔很大，其内部的水分会以滴的形式存在，水分会由于过重、不能被表面张力持住而流走。反之，如果气孔很小，其内部的水分会以薄膜的形式存在，水分太轻以至于不能克服固定它们的表面张力，因此水分就会被以膜的形式保留。 5.But the myths that have grown up around the rites（隆重的仪式或典礼）may continue as part of the group’s oral（口头的; 口述的）tradition and may even come to be acted out under conditions divorced（分离）from these rites.
托福写作翻译句子练习集团文件发布号：（9816-UATWW-MWUB-WUNN-INNUL-DQQTY-
1. 旅游业不但给政府带来税收而且给很多人提供了就业机会。 2. 赌博不但对健康有害，而且会影响家庭和睦。 3. 打工不但能让学生赚零花钱，而且还能让他们学到人际交往的能力。 4. 现在很多学校的校服不但贵，而且还难看，质量不好。 5. 政府不但要多建一些公路，还要鼓励人们多使用公交车。 6. 老人们既不需要很多的钱，也不需要很大的房子，他们最需要的是子女的关心和照顾。 7. 我喜欢旅游，但是，我既没有钱，也没有时间。 8. 在老人院，老人既能够接受到医疗，又能够找到很多有共同话题，共同兴趣的的伙伴。 9. 缴税既是有有利于国家，也是有利于个人。因为政府的税收主要用于公共服务，这个是每个人都会受益的。 10. 打电脑游戏既浪费时间，又有害视力。
11. 打电脑游戏既能使人放松，又能锻炼大脑的灵活性，反映能力 12. 依照最近的一项调查，每年有4，000，000人死于与吸烟有关的疾病。 13. 没有一项发明像互联网一样同时受到如此多的赞扬和批评。 14. 许多专家指出体育锻炼直接有助于身体健康。 15. 无可否认，空气污染是一个极其严重的问题：城市当局应该采取有力措施来解决它。 16. 考虑到问题的严重性，在事态进一步恶化之前，必须采取有效的措施。 17. 尽管这一观点被广泛接受，很少有证据表明飞机会造成灾难性的污染。 18. 没有人能否认：教育是人生最重要的一方面。 19. 事实上，我们必须承认生命的质量和生命本身一样重要。
20. 我们应该不遗余力地保护我们的环境。 21. 现在，人们普遍认为 22. 我同意后者，有如下理由： 23. 这一观点正受到越来越多人的质疑。 24. 使用自行车有助于人们的身体健康，并极大地缓解了交通阻塞。 25. 尽管自行车有许多明显的优点，但是它也存在它的问题。 26. 在速度和舒适度方面，自行车是无法和汽车、火车这样的交通工具相比的。 27. 通过以上讨论，我们可以得出结论：自行车的优点远大于缺点，并且在现代社会它仍将发挥重要作用。 28. 这个问题已经引起了广泛关注。 29. 很多人生活在这样的幻想之中。。。
为了帮助大家高效备考托福，为大家带来托福TPO46阅读Passage1原文文本+题目+答案解析，希望对大家备考有所帮助。 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.■A The Babylonians and Assyrians did the same,and so did peoples in Syria and Asia Minor.■B 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
【王鑫托福阅读】托福TPO 15-2阅读文本 TPO 15 TPO15-2 Mass Extinctions D Fossil records disappeared. of many marine species have 1. Paragraph 1 supports which of the following statements about mass extinctions? A They take place over a period of 70 million years. B They began during the Cretaceous period. C They eliminate many animal species that exist at the time they occur. D They occur every 250 million years. 2. According to paragraph 2, scientists base their belief that a mass extinction is going on at present on which of the following? A The speed with which mass extinctions are happening today is similar to the speed of past extinctions. B The number of species that have died out since the last extinction event is extremely large. C Mass extinctions occur with regularity and it is time fo「a门othe「one. Cases in which many species become extinct within a geologically short interval of time are called mass extinctions. There was one such event at the end of the Cretaceous period (around 70 million years ago). There was another,
文章逐句翻译第一段The vast grasslands of the High Plains in the central United States were settled by farmers and ranchers in the 1880’s. 19世纪80年代，在美国中部北美大平原的广阔草原上定居着农民和农场主们。This region has a semiarid climate, and for 50 years after its settlement, it supported a low-intensity agricultural economy of cattle ranching and wheat farming. 这里有着半干旱的气候，在人们定居50年后，它支撑了一个以畜牧业和小麦种植为主的低密度农业经济。In the early twentieth century, however, it was discovered that much of the High Plains was underlain by a huge aquifer (a rock layer containing large quantities of groundwater). 然而，在20世纪初，人们发现北美大平原的大部下面是巨大的蓄水层（含有大量地下水的岩层）。This aquifer was named the Ogallala aquifer after the Ogallala Sioux Indians, who once inhabited the region.这个蓄水层因曾经在这里定居过的奥加拉拉苏族印第安人而得名，被称作奥加拉拉蓄水层。第二段The Ogallala aquifer is a sandstone formation that underlies some 583,000 square kilometers of land extending from northwestern Texas to southern South Dakota. 奥加拉拉蓄水层属于砂岩结构，在从德克萨斯州西北到南达科塔州的地下绵延了583000平方公里。Water from rains and melting snows has been accumulating in the Ogallala for the past 30,000 years. 雨水和融雪自30000年前便开始在奥加拉拉蓄积。Estimates indicate that the aquifer contains enough water to fill Lake Huron, but