TOEFL阅读讲义1. 句子简化题The Great Red SpotOne distinctive feature of the planet Jupiter is the Great Red Spot, a massive oval of swirling reddish-brown clouds. Were Earth to be juxtaposed with the Great Red Spot, our planet would be dwarfed in comparison, with a diameter less than half that of the Great Red Spot. The Spot’s clouds, most likely tinted red as a result of the phosphorus that they contain, circulate in a counterclockwise direction. The outer winds require six Earth days to complete the circumference of the Great Red Spot, a length of time indicative of vastness of the Great Red Spot.1. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.A. The density of the Great Red spot is much higher than that the Earth.B. If the diameter of the Great Red Spot were doubled, it would equal that of the Earth.C. By placing the Earth next to the Great Red Spot, one could see the Earth has a much smaller diameter.D. Because the Earth is close to the Great Red Spot, Earth is influenced by its huge size.答案：C2.Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.A. The Earth’s outer winds move a distance equal to the circumference of the Great Red Spot.B. The outer winds of the Great Red Spot move more quickly than do those on Earth.C. The Winds moving across the Great Red Spot finally change direction every six Earth days.D. The fact that the winds take so long to move around the Great Red Spot proves how big it is.答案：DPassage One (Question 1-2)CamouflageCamouflage is one of the most effective ways for animals to avoid attack in the treeless Arctic. However, the summer and winter landscapes there are so diverse that a single protective coloring scheme would, of course, prove ineffective in one season or the other. Thus, many of the inhabitants of the Arctic tundra change their camouflage twice a year. The arctic fox is a clear-cut example of this phenomenon; it sports a brownish-gray coat in the summer which then turns white as cold weather sets in, and the process reverses itself in the springtime. Its brownish-gray coat blends in with the barren tundra landscape in the months without snow, and the white coat naturally blends in with the landscape of the frozen wintertime tundra.1. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the first highlighted sentence in the passage?Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.A.Opposite conditions in summer and in winter necessitate different protective coloration forArctic animals.B.The coloration of the summer and winter landscapes in the Arctic fails to protect the Arctictundra.C.In a single season, protective coloring scheme are ineffective in the treeless Arctic.D.For many animals, a single protective coloring scheme effectively protects them duringsummer and winter months.答案：A2. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the second highlighted sentence in the passage?Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.A.The arctic fox is unusual in that he color of its coat changes for no reason.B.The arctic fox lives in an environment that is brownish gray in the summer and white in thewinter.C.It is a phenomenon that the coat of the arctic fox turns white I the springtime and gray inthe fall.D.The arctic fox demonstrates that protective coloration can change during different seasons. 答案：DPassage Two (Question 3-6)Post-it NotesPost-it Notes were invented in the 1970s at the 3M company in Minnesota quite by accident, Researchers at 3M were working on developing different types of adhesives, and one particularly weak adhesive, a compound of acrylate copolymer microspheres, was developed. Employees at 3M were asked if they could think of a use for a weak adhesive which, provided it did not get dirty, could be reused. One suggestion was that it could be applied to a piece of paper to use as a bookmark that would stay in place in a book. Another use was found when the product was attached to a report that was to be sent to a colleague with a request for comments on the report; the colleague made his comments on the paper attached to the report and returned the report. The idea for Post-it Notes was born.It was decided within the company that there would be a test launch of product in 1977 in four American cities. Sales of this innovative product in test cities were less than stellar, most likely because the product, while innovative, was also quite unfamiliar. A final attempt was then made in the city of Boise to introduce the product. In that attempt, 3M salesmen gave demonstrations of the product in offices throughout Boise and gave away free samples of the produce. When the salesmen returned a week later to the office workers, having noted how useful the simple little product could be, were interested in purchasing it. Over time, 3M came to understand the huge potential of this new product, and over the next few decades more than 400 varieties of Post-it products - in different colors, shapes, and sizes – have been developed.3. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the first highlighted sentence in the passage 1?Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.A.Of the many adhesives that were being developed at 3M, one was not a particularly strongadhesive.B.Researchers at 3M spent many years trying to develop a really weak adhesive.C.Numerous weak adhesives resulted from a program to develop the strongest adhesive of all.D.Researchers were assigned to develop different types of uses for acrylate copolymermicrospheres.答案：A4. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the second highlighted sentence in the passage 1?Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.A.The 3M company suggested applying for a patent on the product in a report prepared by acolleague.B.One unexpectedly-discovered use for the adhesive was in sending and receiving notesattached to documents.C. A note was attached to a report asking for suggestion for uses of one of 3M’s products.D. A colleague who developed the new product kept notes with suggestions by other workers.答案：B5. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the first highlighted sentence in the passage 2?Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.A.The 3M company was unfamiliar with the process of using test cities to introduce innovativeproducts.B.Sales of the product soared even though the product was quite unfamiliar to most customers.C.The new product did not sell well because potential customers did not understand it.D.After selling the product for a while, the company understood that the product was notinnovative enough.答案：C6. Which of the sentences below expresses the essential information in the second highlighted sentence in the passage 2?Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.A.The company immediately understood the potential of the product and began to develop itfurther.B.The company worked overtime to develop its new product, initially creating numerousvarieties to make it successful.C.The company initially introduced 400 varieties of the product and then watched for decades assales improved.D.It took some time for the company to understand how important its new product was and howmany variation were possible.答案：D2. 排除列举题The geology of the Earth's surface is dominated by the particular properties of water.Present on Earth in solid, liquid, and gaseous states, water is exceptionally reactive. Itdissolves, transports, and precipitates many chemical compounds and is constantlyLine modifying the face of the Earth.(5) Evaporated from the oceans, water vapor forms clouds, some of which are transportedby wind over the continents. Condensation from the clouds provides the essential agent of continental erosion: rain. Precipitated onto the ground, the water trickles down to formbrooks, streams, and rivers, constituting what are called the hydrographic network. Thisimmense polarized network channels the water toward a single recepatcle: an ocean.(10) Gravity dominates this entire step in the cycle because water tends to minimize itspotential energy by running from high altitudes toward the reference point, that is, sealevel.The rate at which a molecule of water passes through the cycle is not random but is a measure of the relative size of the various reservoirs. If we define residence time as the (15) average time for a water molecule to pass throught one of the three reservoirs—atmosphere, continent, and ocean—we see that the times are very different. A watermolecule stays, on average, eleven days in the atmosphere, one hundred years on acontinent and forty thousand years in the ocean. This last figure shows the importance ofthe ocean as the principal reservoir of the hydrosphere but also the rapidity of water(20) transport on the continents.A vast chemical separation process takes places during the flow of water over thecontinents. Soluble ions such as calcium, sodium, potassium, and some magnesium are dissolved and transported. Insoluble ions such as aluminum, iron, and silicon stay where they are and form the thin, fertile skin of soil on which vegetation can grow. Sometimes (25) soils are destroyed and transported mechanically during flooding. The erosion of thecontinents thus results from two closely linked and interdependent processes, chemical erosion and mechanical erosion. Their respective interactions and efficiency depend on different factors.8. All of the following are example of soluble ions EXCEPT(A) magnesium(B) iron(C) potassium(D) calcium答案：BThe canopy, the upper level of the trees in the rain forest, holds a plethora of climbing mammals of moderately large size, which may include monkeys, cats, civets, andporcupines. Smaller species, including such rodents as mice and small squirrels, are not Line as prevalent overall in high tropical canopies as they are in most habitats globally. (5) Small mammals, being warm blooded, suffer hardship in the exposed and turbulentenvironment of the uppermost trees. Because a small body has more surface area per unit of weight than a large one of similar shape, it gains or loses heat more swiftly.Thus, in the trees, where shelter from heat and cold may be scarce and conditions may fluctuate, a small mammal may have trouble maintaining its body temperature.(10) Small size makes it easy to scramble among twigs and branches in the canopy forinsects, flowers, or fruit, but small mammals are surpassed, in the competition forfood, by large ones that have their own tactics for browsing among food-rich twigs.The weight of a gibbon (a small ape) hanging below a branch arches the terminalleaves down so that fruit-bearing foliage drops toward the gibbon's face. Walking or(15) leaping species of a similar or even larger size access the outer twigs either by snapping offand retrieving the whole branch or by clutching stiff branches with the feet or tail andplucking food with their hands.Small climbing animals may reach twigs readily, but it is harder for them than forlarge climbing animals to cross the wide gaps from on tree crown to the next that(20) typify the high canopy. A macaque or gibbon can hurl itself farther than a mouse can: itcan achieve a running start, and it can more effectively use a branch as a springboard,even bouncing on a limb several times before jumping. The forward movement of a small animal is seriously reduced by the air friction against the relatively large surfacearea of its body. Finally, for the many small mammals that supplement their insect(25) diet with fruits or seeds, an inability to span open gaps between tree crowns may beproblematic, since trees that yield these foods can be sparse.2. Which of the following animals is less common in the upper canopy than in other environments?(A) Monkeys(B) Cats(C) Porcupines(D) Mice答案：DDuring the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, almost nothing was written about the contributions of women during the colonial period and the early history of the newlyformed United States. Lacking the right to vote and absent from the seats of power,Line women were not considered an important force in history. Anne Bradstreet wrote some (5) significant poetry in the seventeenth century, Mercy Otis Warren produced the bestcontemporary history of the American Revolution, and Abigail Adams penned importantletters showing she exercised great political influence over her husband, John, the second President of the United States. But little or no notice was taken of these contributions.During these centuries, women remained invisible in history books.(10) Throughout the nineteenth century, this lack of visibility continued, despite the effortsof female authors writing about women. These writers, like most of their malecounterparts, were amateur historians. Their writings were celebratory in nature, andthey were uncritical in their selection and use of sources.During the nineteenth century, however, certain feminists showed a keen sense of(15) history by keeping records of activities in which women were engaged. National,regional, and local women's organizations compiled accounts of their doings. Personalcorrespondence, newspaper clippings, and souvenirs were saved and stored. These sources form the core of the two greatest collections of women's history in the United States; one at the Elizabeth and Arthur Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, and the other the (20) Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Such sources have provided valuablematerials for later generations of historians.Despite the gathering of more information about ordinary women during thenineteenth century, most of the writing about women conformed to the "great women"theory of history, just as much of mainstream American history concentrated on "great (25) men." To demonstrate that women were making significant contributions to Americanlife, female authors singled out women leaders and wrote biographies. or else importantwomen produced their autobiographies. Most of these leaders were involved in publiclife as reformers, activists working for women's right to vote, or authors, and were notrepresentative at all of the great of ordinary woman. The lives of ordinary people(30) continued, generally, to be untold in the American histories being published.9. In the last paragraph, the author mentions all of the following as possible roles of nineteenth-century "great women" EXCEPT(A) authors(B) reformers(C) activists for women's rights(D) politicians答案：DPotash (the old name for potassium carbonate) is one of the two alkalis (the otherbeing soda, sodium carbonate) that were used from remote antiquity in the making ofglass, and from the early Middle Ages in the making of soap: the former being theLine product of heating a mixture of alkali and sand, the latter a product of alkali and(5) vegetable oil. Their importance in the communities of colonial North America needhardly be stressed.Potash and soda are not interchangeable for all purposes, but for glass-or soap-making either would do. Soda was obtained largely from the ashes of certainMediterranean sea plants, potash from those of inland vegetation. Hence potash was (10) more familiar to the early European settlers of the North American continent.The settlement at Jamestown in Virginia was in many ways a microcosm of theeconomy of colonial North America, and potash was one of its first concerns. It wasrequired for the glassworks, the first factory in the British colonies, and was produced in sufficient quantity to permit the inclusion of potash in the first cargo shipped out of (15) Jamestown. The second ship to arrive in the settlement from England included among itspassengers experts in potash making.The method of making potash was simple enough. Logs were piled up and burned in the open, and the ashes collected. The ashes were placed in a barrel with holes in thebottom, and water was poured over them. The solution draining from the barrel was (20) boiled down in iron kettles. The resulting mass was further heated to fuse the mass intowhat was called potash.In North America, potash making quickly became an adjunct to the clearing ofland for agriculture, for it was estimated that as much as half the cost of clearing landcould be recovered by the sale of potash. Some potash was exported from Maine and New (25) Hampshire in the seventeenth century, but the market turned out to be mainly domestic,consisting mostly of shipments from the northern to the southern colonies. For despite the beginning of the trade at Jamestown and such encouragements as a series of acts "to encourage the making of potash," beginning in 1707 in South Carolina, the softwoods in the South proved to be poor sources of the substance.1. What aspect of potash does the passage mainly discuss?(A) How it was made(B) Its value as a product for export(C) How it differs from other alkalis(D) Its importance in colonial North America答案：C2. All of the following statements are true of both potash and soda EXPECT:(A) They are alkalis.(B) They are made from sea plants.(C) They are used in making soap.(D) They are used in making glass.答案：B7. According to paragraph 4, all of following were needed for making potash EXCEPT(A) wood(B) fire(C) sand(D) water答案：CPennsylvania's colonial ironmasters forged iron and a revolution that had bothindustrial and political implications. The colonists in North America wanted the right to the profits gained from their manufacturing. However, England wanted all of theLine colonies' rich ores and raw materials to feed its own factories, and also wanted the (5) colonies to be a market for its finished goods. England passed legislation in 1750 toprohibit colonists from making finished iron products, but by 1771, when entrepreneur Mark Bird established the Hopewell blast furnace in Pennsylvania, iron making had become the backbone of American industry. It also had become one of the major issues that fomented the revolutionary break between England and the British colonies. By the (10) time the War of Independence broke out in 1776, Bird, angered and determined, wasmanufacturing cannons and shot at Hopewell to be used by the Continental Army.After the war, Hopewell, along with hundreds of other "iron plantations," continued toform the new nation's industrial foundation well into the nineteenth century. The rurallandscape became dotted with tall stone pyramids that breathed flames and smoke,(15) charcola-fueled iron furnaces that produced the versatile metal so crucial to the nation'sgrowth. Generations of ironmasters, craftspeople, and workers produced goods duringwar and peace—ranging from cannons and shot to domestic items such as cast-ironstoves, pots, and sash weights for windows.The region around Hopewell had everything needed for iron production: a wealth of (20) iron ore near the surface, limestone for removing impurities from the iron, hardwoodforests to supply the charcoal used for fuel, rushing water to power the bellows thatpumped blasts of air into the furnace fires, and workers to supply the labor. By the1830's, Hopewell had developed a reputation for producing high quality cast-iron stoves, for which there was a steady market. As Pennsylvania added more links to its(25) transportation system of roads, canals, and railroads, it became easier to ship parts madeby Hopewell workers to sites all over the east coast. There they ware assembled intostoves and sold from Rhode Island to Maryland as the "Hopewell stove". By the time thelast fires burned out at Hopewell ironworks in 1883, the community had produced some80,000 cast-iron stoves.5. Pennsylvania was an ideal location for the Hopewell ironworks for all of the following reasons EXCEPT(A) Many workers were available in the area(B) The center of operations of the army was nearby(C) The metal ore was easy to acquire(D) There was an abundance of wood答案：BUnder the Earth's topsoil, at various levels, sometimes under a layer of rock, there aredeposits of clay. Look at cuts where highways have been built to see exposed clay beds;or look at a construction site, where pockets of clay may be exposed. Rivers also revealLine clay along their banks, and erosion on a hillside may make clay easily accessible.(5) What is clay made of? The Earth's surface is basically rock, and it is this rock thatgradually decomposes into clay. Rain, streams, alternating freezing and thawing, roots of trees and plants forcing their way into cracks, earthquakes, volcanic action, and glaciers—all of these forces slowly break down the Earth's exposed rocky crust into smaller andsmaller pieces that eventually become clay.(10) Rocks are composed of elements and compounds of elements. Feldspar, which is themost abundant mineral on the Earth's surface, is basically made up of the oxidessilica and alumina combined with alkalis like potassium and some so-called impuritiessuch as iron. Feldspar is an essential component of granite rocks, and as such it is thebasis of clay. When it is wet, clay can be easily shaped to make a variety of useful(15) objects, which can then be fired to varying degrees of hardness and covered withimpermeable decorative coatings of glasslike material called glaze. Just as volcanicaction, with its intense heat, fuses the elements in certain rocks into a glasslike rockcalled obsidian, so can we apply heat to earthen materials and change them into a hard,dense material. Different clays need different heat levels to fuse, and some, the low-fire (20) clays, never become nonporous and watertight like highly fired stoneware. Each clay canstand only a certain amount of heat without losing its shape through sagging or melting.V ariations of clay composition and the temperatures at which they are fired account forthe differences in texture and appearance between a china teacup and an earthenwareflowerpot.2. It can be inferred from the passage that clay is LEAST likely to be plentiful in which of the following areas?(A) in desert sand dunes(B) in forests(C) on hillsides(D) near rivers答案：AIn July of 1994, an astounding series of events took place. The world anxiouslywatched as, every few hours, a hurtling chunk of comet plunged into the atmosphere ofJupiter. All of the twenty-odd fragments, collectively called comet Shoemaker-Levy 9Line after its discoverers, were once part of the same object, now dismembered and strung out (5) along the same orbit. This cometary train, glistening like a string of pearls, had been firstglimpsed only a few months before its fateful impact with Jupiter, and rather quicklyscientists had predicted that the fragments were on a collision course with the giantplanet. The impact caused an explosion clearly visible from Earth, a bright flaming firethat quickly expanded as each icy mass incinerated itself. When each fragment slammed (10) at 60 kilometers per second into the dense atmosphere, its immense kinetic energy wastransformed into heat, producing a superheated fireball that was ejected back through the tunnel the fragment had made a few seconds earlier. The residues form these explo-sions left huge black marks on the face of Jupiter, some of which have stretched out tofrom dark ribbons.(15) Although this impact event was of considerable scientific importance, it especially piquedpublic curiosity and interest. Photographs of each collision made the evening televisionnewscast and were posted on the Internet. This was possibly the most open scientificendeavor in history. The face of the largest planet in the solar system was changed before our very eyes. And for the very first time, most of humanity came to fully appreciate the (20) fact that we ourselves live on a similar target, a world subject to catstrophe by randomassaults from celestial bodies. That realization was a surprise to many, but it should nothave been. One of the great truths revealed by the last few decades of planetary explo-ration is that collisions between bodies of all sizes are relatively commonplace, at least in geologic terms, and were even more frequent in the early solar system.3. The author compares the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 to all of the following EXCEPT(A) a dismembered body(B) a train(C) a pearl necklace(D) a giant planet答案：DBy far the most important United States export product in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries was cotton, favored by the European textile industry over flax or wool because it was easy to process and soft to tile touch. Mechanization of spinning and Line weaving allowed significant centralization and expansion in the textile industry during (5) this period, and at the same time the demand for cotton increased dramatically. Americanproducers were able to meet this demand largely because of tile invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793. Cotton could be grown throughout the South, but separating the fiber—or lint—from the seed was a laborious process. Sea island cotton wasrelatively easy to process by hand, because its fibers were long and seeds were(10) concentrated at the base of the flower, but it demanded a long growing season, availableonly along the nation's eastern seacoast. Short-staple cotton required a much shortergrowing season, but the shortness of the fibers and their mixture with seeds meant that a worker could hand-process only about one pound per day. Whitney's gin was a hand-powered machine with revolving drums and metal teeth to pull cotton fibers away from (15) seeds. Using the gin, a worker could produce up to 50 pounds of lint a day. The laterdevelopment of larger gins, powered by horses, water, or steam, multiplied productivity further.The interaction of improved processing and high demand led to the rapid spread of the cultivation of cotton and to a surge in production. It became the main American (20) export, dwarfing all others. In 1802, cotton composed 14 percent of total Americanexports by value. Cotton had a 36 percent share by 1810 and over a 50 percent share in 1830. In 1860, 61 percent of the value of American exports was represented by cotton.In contrast, wheat and wheat flour composed only 6 percent of the value of American exports in that year. Clearly, cotton was king in the trade of the young republic. The (25) growing market for cotton and other American agricultural products led to anunprecedented expansion of agricultural settlement, mostly in the eastern half of theUnited States—west of the Appalachian Mountains and east of the Mississippi River.。
