2002年10月TOEFL考试真题

Section Three: Reading Comprehension

Question 1-9

       The first birds appeared during late Jurassic times. These birds are known from 
    four very good skeletons, two incomplete skeletons, and an isolated feather, all from 
    the Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria, Germany. This fine-grained rock, which is 
    extensively quarried for lithographic stone, was evidently deposited in a shallow 
(5) coral lagoon of a tropical sea, and flying vertebrates occasionally fell into the water 
    and were buried by the fine limy mud, to be preserved with remarkable detail In this 
    way, the late Jurassic bird skeletons, which have been named Archaeopteryx, were 
    fossilized. And not only were the bones preserved in these skeletons, but so also 
    were imprints of the feathers. If the indications of feathers had not been preserved in 
(10)association with Archaeopteryx, it is likely that these fossils would have been 
    classified among the dinosaurs, for they show numerous theropod characteristics.
    Archaeopteryx were animals about the size of a crow, with an archeosaurian type of 
    skull, a long neck, a compact body balanced on a pair of strong hind limbs, and a 
    long tail. The forelimbs were enlarged and obviously functioned as wings.
(15)Modern birds, who are the descendants of these early birds, are highly 
    organized animals, with a constant body temperature and a very high rate of 
    metabolism. In addition, they are remarkable for having evolved extraordinarily 
    complex behavior patterns such as those of nesting and song, and the habit among 
    many species of making long migrations from one continent to another and back
(20)each year.
      Most birds also have very strong legs, which allows them to run or walk on the
    ground as well as to fly in the air. Indeed, some of the waterbirds, such as ducks and
    geese, have the distinction of being able to move around proficiently in the water, on
    land, and in the air, a range in natural locomotor ability that has never been attained
(25)by any other vertebrate.

1. According to the author, all of-the following evidence relating to the first birds was found EXCEPT
(A) nesting materials
(B) four skeletons in good condition
(C) two fragmented skeletons
(D) a single feather
 
2. The word "preserved" in line 8 is closest in
meaning to
(A) confused with others
(B) gradually weakened
(C) protected from destruction
(D) lost permanently
 
3. It can be inferred from the passage that the Archaeopteryx were classified as birds on the basis of
(A) imprints of bones
(B) imprints of feathers
(C) the neck structure
(D) skeletons
 
4. The word "they" in line 11 refers to
(A) indications
(B) fossils
(C) dinosaurs
(D) characteristics
 
5. Why does the author mention "a crow" in line 12?
(A) to indicate the size of Archaeopteryx
(B) To specify the age of the Archaeopteryx fossils
(C) To explain the evolutionary history of Archaeopteryx
(D) To demonstrate the superiority of the theropod to Archaeopteryx
 
6. It can be inferred from the passage that theropods were
(A) dinosaurs
(B) birds 
(C) Archaeopteryx 
(D) crows
 
7. The word "constant" in line 16 is closest in meaning to 
(A) comfortable
(B) combined
(C) consistent
(D) complementary
 
8. The author mentions all of the following as examples of complex behavior patterns evolved by birds EXCEPT
(A) migrating
(B) nesting
(C) singing
(D) running
 
9. The word "attained" in line 24 is closest in meaning to 
(A) required
(B) achieved 
(C) observed
(D) merited

Questions 10-19

      Newspaper publishers in the United States have long been enthusiastic users 
    and distributors of weather maps. Although some newspapers that had carried the 
    United States Weather Bureau's national weather map in 1912 dropped it once the 
    novelty had passed, many continued to print the daily weather chart provided by 
(5) their local forecasting office. In the 1930's, when interest in aviation and progress in 
    air-mass analysis made weather patterns more newsworthy, additional newspapers 
    started or resumed the daily weather map. In 1935, The Associated Press (AP) news
    service inaugurated its WirePhoto network and offered subscribing newspapers 
    morning and afternoon weather maps redrafted by the AP's Washington, B.C., office 
(10)from charts provided by the government agency. Another news service, United Press   International (UPI), developed a competing photowire network and also provided 
    timely weather maps for both morning and afternoon newspapers. After the United 
    States government launched a series of weather satellites in 1966, both the AP and 
    UPI offered cloud-cover photos obtained from the Weather Bureau. 
(15)  In the late 1970's and early 1980's, the weather map became an essential 
    ingredient in the redesign of the American newspaper. News publishers, threatened 
    by increased competition from television for readers' attention, sought to package 
    the news more conveniently and attractively. In 1982, many publishers felt 
    threatened by the new USA Today, a national daily newspaper that used a page-wide,
(20)full-color weather map as its key design element. That the weather map in USA 
    21 Today did not include information about weather fronts and pressures attests to the 
    largely symbolic role it played. Nonetheless, competing local and metropolitan 
    newspapers responded in a variety of ways. Most substituted full-color temperature 
    maps for the standard weather maps, while others dropped the comparatively drab
(25)satellite photos or added regional forecast maps with pictorial symbols to indicate 
    rainy, snowy, cloudy, or clear conditions. A few newspapers, notably The New York 
    Times, adopted a highly informative yet less visually prominent weather map that 
    was specially designed to explain an important recent or imminent weather event. 
    Ironically, a newspaper's richest, most instructive weather maps often are
(30)comparatively small and inconspicuous. 

10. What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) The differences between government and newspaper weather forecasting in the United States.
(B) The history of publishing weather maps in United States newspapers
(C) A comparison of regional and national weather reporting in the United States.
(D) Information that forms the basis for weather forecasting in the United States 

11. The word "resumed" in line 7 is closest in meaning to
(A) began again
(B) held back
(C) thought over
(D) referred to
 
12. According to the passage, one important reason why newspapers printed daily weather maps during the first half of the twentieth century was
(A) the progress in printing technology
(B) a growing interest in air transportation
(C) a change in atmospheric conditions
(D) the improvement of weather forecasting techniques

13. What regular service did The Associated Press and United Press International begin to offer subscribing newspapers in the 1930's?
(A) A new system of weather forecasting
(B) An air-mass analysis
(C) Twice daily weather maps
(D) Cloud-cover photographs
 
14. The phrase "attests to" in line 21 is closest in meaning to
(A) makes up for
(B) combines with
(C) interferes with
(D) gives evidence of
 
15. The word "others" in line 24 refers to
(A) newspapers
(B) ways
(C) temperature maps
(D) weather maps
 
16. The word "drab" in line 24 is closest in meaning to
(A) precise
(B) poor
(C) simple
(D) dull
 
17. In contrast to the weather maps of USA Today, weather maps in The New York Times tended to be
(A) printed in foil color
(B) included for symbolic reasons
(C) easily understood by the readers
(D) filled with detailed information 
 
18. The word "prominent" in line 27 is closest in meaning to
(A) complex
(B) noticeable
(C) appealing
(D) perfect
 
19. The author uses the term "Ironically" in line 29 to indicate that a weather map's
appearance
(A) is not important to newspaper publishers
(B) does not always indicate how much information it provides
(C) reflects how informative a newspaper can be
(D) often can improve newspaper sales
 
Question 20-30

         Some animal behaviorists argue that certain animals can remember past events,
       anticipate future ones, make plans and choices, and coordinate activities within a 
       group. These scientists, however, are cautious about the extent to which animals can 
       be credited with conscious processing.
(5)    Explanations of animal behavior that leave out any sort of consciousness at all
       and ascribe actions entirely to instinct leave many questions unanswered. One 
       example of such unexplained behavior: Honeybees communicate the sources of 
       nectar to one another by doing a dance in a figure-eight pattern. The orientation of 
       the dance conveys the position of the food relative to the sun's position in the sky, 
(10)   and the speed of the dance tells how far the food source is from the hive. Most 
       researchers assume that the ability to perform and encode the dance is innate and 
       shows no special intelligence. But in one study, when experimenters kept changing 
       the site of the food source, each time moving the food 25 percent farther from the 
       previous site, foraging honeybees began to anticipate where the food source would 
(15)   appear next. When the researchers arrived at the new location, they would find the 
       bees circling the spot, waiting for their food. No one has yet explained how bees, 
       whose brains weigh four ten-thousandths of an ounce, could have inferred the 
       location of the new site.
       Other behaviors that may indicate some cognition include tool use. Many 
(20)   animals, like the otter who uses a stone to crack mussel shells, are capable of using 
       objects in the natural environment as rudimentary tools. One researcher has found 
       that mother chimpanzees occasionally show their young how to use tools to open 
       hard nuts. In one study, chimpanzees compared two pairs of food wells containing 
       chocolate chips. One pair might contain, say, five chips and three chips, the other 
(25)   our chips and three chips. Allowed to choose which pair they wanted, the 
       chimpanzees almost always chose the one with the higher total, showing some sort 
       of summing ability. Other chimpanzees have learned to use numerals to label 
       quantities of items and do simple sums.

20. What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) The role of instinct in animal behavior
(B) Observations that suggest consciousness in animal behavior
(C) The use of food in studies of animal behavior
(D) Differences between the behavior of animals in their natural environments and in laboratory experiments.
 
21. Which of the following is NOT discussed as an ability animals are thought to have?
(A) Selecting among choices 
(B) Anticipating events to come
(C) Remembering past experiences
(D) Communicating emotions
 
22. What is the purpose of the honeybee dance?
(A) To determine the quantity of food at a site
(B) To communicate the location of food
(C) To increase the speed of travel to food sources
(D) T identify the type of nectar that is available 

23. The word "yet" in line 16 is closest in meaning to
(A) however
(B) since
(C) generally
(D) so far

24. What did researchers discover in the study of honeybees discussed in paragraph 2?
(A) Bees are able to travel at greater speeds than scientists thought.
(B) The bees could travel 25% farther than scientists expected.
(C) The bees were able to determine in advance where scientists would place their food.
(D) Changing the location of food caused bees to decrease their dance activity. 

25. It can be inferred from the passage that brain size is assumed to
(A) be an indicator of cognitive ability
(B) vary among individuals within a species
(C) be related to food consumption
(D) correspond to levels of activity

26. Why are otters and mussel shells included in the discussion in paragraph 3?
(A) To provide an example of tool use among animals
(B) To prove that certain species demonstrate greater ability in tool use than other species
(C) empty
(D) empty

27. The word "rudimentary" in line 21 is closest in meaning to 
(A) superior
(B) original
(C) basic
(D) technical

28. It can be inferred from the statement about mother chimpanzees and their young (lines 21-23) that young chimpanzees have difficulty 
(A) communicating with their mothers
(B) adding quantities 
(C) making choices
(D) opening hard nuts

29. The phrase "the one" in line 26 refers to the
(A) study
(B) pair
(C) chimpanzee
(D) ability
 
30. Scientists concluded from the experiment with chimpanzees and chocolate chips
that chimpanzees
(A) lack abilities that other primates have
(B) prefer to work in pairs or groups
(C) exhibit behavior that indicates certain mathematical abilities
(D) have difficulty selecting when given choices

Questions 31-39
       In eighteenth-century colonial America, flowers and fruit were typically the
     province of the botanical artist interested in scientific illustration rather than being
     the subjects of fine art. Early in the nineteenth century, however, the Peale family of
     Philadelphia established the still life, a picture consisting mainly of inanimate
(5)  objects, as a valuable part of the artist's repertoire. The fruit paintings by James and
     Sarah Miriam Peale are simple arrangements of a few objects, handsomely colored,
     small in size, and representing little more than what they are. In contrast were the
     highly symbolic, complex compositions by Charles Bird King, with their biting
     satire and critical social commentary. Each of these strains comminuted into   and
(10) well past mid-century.
       John F. Francis (1808-86) was a part of the Pennsylvania still-life tradition that
     arose, at least in part, from the work of the Peales. Most of his still lifes date from
     around 1850 to 1875. Luncheon Still Life looks like one of the Peales' pieces on a
     larger scale, kits greater complexity resulting from the number of objects. It is also
(15) indebted to the luncheon type of still life found in seventeenth-century Dutch
     painting. The opened bottles of wine and the glasses of wine partially consumed
     suggest a number of unseen guests. The appeal of the fruit and nuts to our sense of
     taste is heightened by the juicy orange, which has already been sliced.  The
     arrangement is additive, that is, made up of many different parts, not always
(20) compositionally integrated, with all objects of essentially equal importance.
        About 1848, Severin Roesen came to the United States from Germany and 
     settled in New York City, where he began to paint large, lush still lifes of flowers, 
     fruit, or both, often measuring over four feet across. Still Life with Fruit and
     Champagne is typical in its brilliance of color, meticulous rendering of detail, 
(25) compact composition, and unabashed abundance. Rich in symbolic overtones, the 
     beautifully painted objects carry additional meanings------butterflies or fallen buds 
     suggest the impermanence of life, a bird's nest with eggs means fertility, and so on. 
     Above all, Roesen's art expresses the abundance that America symbolized to many of its citizens.

31. What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) The artwork of James and Sarah Miriam Peale
(B) How Philadelphia became a center for art in the nineteenth century
(C) Nineteenth-century still-life paintings in the United States
(D) How botanical art inspired the first still-life paintings

32. Which of the following is mentioned as a characteristic of the still lifes of James and Sarah Miriam Peale?
(A) Simplicity
(B) Symbolism
(C) Smooth texture
(D) Social commentary

33. The word "biting" in line 8 is closest in meaning to
(A) simple
(B) sorrowful
(B) frequent
(D) sharp 
 
34. The word "It" in line 14 refers to
(A) Luncheon Still Life
(B) one of the Peales' pieces
(C) a larger scale
(D) the number of objects 
 
35. The word "heightened" in line 18 is closest in meaning to
(A) complicated
(B) directed
(C) observed 
(D) increased
 
36. The word "meticulous" in line 24 is closest in meaning to
(A) careful
(B) significant
(C) appropriate
(D) believable
 
37. Which of the following terms is defined in the passage?
(A) "repertoire" (line 5)
(B) "satire" (line 9)
(C) "additive" (line 19)
(D) "rendering" (line 24)
 
38. All of the following are mentioned as characteristics of Roesen's still lifes EXCEPT that they
(A) are symbolic
(B) use simplified representations of flowers and fruit
(C) include brilliant colors
(D) are large in size
 
39. Which of the following  is mentioned  as the dominant theme in Roesen's painting?
(A) Fertility
(B) Freedom
(C) Impermanence
(D) Abundance

Question 40-50
      Scientists have discovered that for the last 160,000 years, at least, there has 
    been a consistent relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the air and 
    the average temperature of the planet. The importance of carbon dioxide in 
    regulating the Earth's temperature was confirmed by scientists working in eastern 
(5) Antarctica. Drilling down into a glacier, they extracted a mile-long cylinder of ice 
    from the hole. The glacier had formed as layer upon layer of snow accumulated year 
    after year. Thus drilling into the ice was tantamount to drilling back through time.
    The deepest sections of the core are composed of water that fell as snow 
    160,000 years ago. Scientists in Grenoble, France, fractured portions of the core and
(10)measured the composition of ancient air released from bubbles in the ice. 
    Instruments were used to measure the ratio of certain isotopes in the frozen water to 
    get an idea of the prevailing atmospheric temperature at the time when that 
    particular bit of water became locked in the glacier.
      The result is a remarkable unbroken record of temperature and of atmospheric
(15)levels of carbon dioxide. Almost every time the chill of an ice age descended on the 
    planet, carbon dioxide levels dropped. When the global temperature dropped 9°F (5 °C),
    carbon dioxide levels dropped to 190 parts per million or so. Generally, as each 
    ice age ended and the Earth basked in a warm interglacial period, carbon dioxide 
    levels were around 280 parts per million. Through the 160,000 years of that ice
(20)record, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fluctuated between 190 and 
    280 parts per million, but never rose much higher-until the Industrial Revolution 
    beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing today.
    There is indirect evidence that the link between carbon dioxide levels and 
    global temperature change goes back much further than the glacial record. Carbon
(25)dioxide levels may have been much greater than the current concentration during the
    Carboniferous period, 360 to 285 million years ago. The period was named for a
    profusion of plant life whose buried remains produced a large fraction of the coal 
    deposits that are being brought to the surface and burned today.

40. Which of the following does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) Chemical causes of ice ages
(B) Techniques for studying ancient layers of ice in glaciers
(C) Evidence of a relationship between levels of carbon dioxide and global temperature
(D) Effects of plant life on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere
 
41. The word “accumulated” in line 6 is closest in meaning to_________
(A) spread out
(B) changed
(C) became denser
(D) built up
 
42. According to the passage, the drilling of the glacier in eastern Antarctica was important because it
(A) allowed scientists to experiment with new drilling techniques
(B) permitted the study of surface temperatures in an ice-covered region of Earth
(C) provided insight about climate conditions in earlier periods
(D) confirmed earlier findings about how glaciers are formed
 
43. The phrase "tantamount to" in line 7 is closest in meaning to
(A) complementary to
(B) practically the same as
(C) especially well suited to
(D) unlikely to be confused with
 
44. According to the passage, Grenoble, France, is the place where
(A) instruments were developed for measuring certain chemical elements
(B) scientists first recorded atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide
(C) scientists studied the contents of an ice core from Antarctica
(D) empty

45. According to the passage, scientists used isotopes from the water of the ice core to determine which of following?
(A) The amount of air that had bubbled to the surface since the ice had formed
(B) The temperature of the atmosphere when the ice was formed
(C) The date at which water had become locked in the glacier
(D) The rate at which water had been frozen in the glacier
 
46. The word "remarkable" in line 14 is closest in meaning to 
(A) genuine
(B) permanent 
(C) extraordinary 
(D) continuous
 
47. The word "link" in line 23 is closest in meaning to
(A) tension
(B) connection
(C) attraction 
(D) distance
 
48. The passage implies that the warmest temperatures among the periods mentioned occurred
(A) in the early eighteenth century
(B) 160,000 years ago
(C) at the end of each ice age
(D) between 360 and 285 million years ago
 
49. According to the passage, the Carboniferous period was characterized by
(A) a reduction in the number of coal deposits
(B) the burning of a large amount of coal
(C) an abundance of plants
(D) an accelerated rate of glacier formation
 
50. The passage explains the origin of which of the following terms? 
(A) Glacier (line5)
(B) Isotopes (line 11)
(C) Industrial Revolution (line 21)
(D) Carboniferous period (lines 26

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