托福阅读真题集锦.doc

托福阅读真题集锦（一）

PASSAGE 1

By the mid-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1861-1865),as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.
Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.
But as early as 1803, an ingenious Maryland farmer Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetownwas the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks.One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.

1. What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) The influence of ice on the diet
(B) The development of refrigeration
(C) The transportation of goods to market
(D) Sources of ice in the nineteenth century
2. According to the passage , when did the word "icebox" become part of the language of the
United States?
(A) in 1803
(B) sometime before 1850
(C) during the civil war
(D) near the end of the nineteenth century
3. The phrase "forward-looking" in line 4 is closest in meaning to
(A) progressive
(B) popular
(C) thrifty
(D) well-established
4. The author mentions fish in line 4 because
(A) many fish dealers also sold ice
(B) fish was shipped in refrigerated freight cars
(C) fish dealers were among the early commercial users of ice
(D) fish was not part of the ordinary person's diet before the invention of the icebox
5. The word "it" in line 5 refers to
(A) fresh meat
(B) the Civil War
(C) ice
(D) a refrigerator
6. According to the passage , which of the following was an obstacle to the development of the
icebox?
(A) Competition among the owners of refrigerated freight cars
(B) The lack of a network for the distribution of ice
(C) The use of insufficient insulation
(D) Inadequate understanding of physics
7. The word "rudimentary" in line 12 is closest in meaning to
(A) growing
(B) undeveloped
(C) necessary
(D) uninteresting
8. According to the information in the second paragraph, an ideal icebox would
(A) completely prevent ice from melting
(B) stop air from circulating
(C) allow ice to melt slowly
(D) use blankets to conserve ice
9. The author describes Thomas Moore as having been "on the right track" (lines 18-19) to
indicate that
(A) the road to the market passed close to Moore's farm
(B) Moore was an honest merchant
(C) Moore was a prosperous farmer
(D) Moore's design was fairly successful
10. According to the passage , Moore's icebox allowed him to
(A) charge more for his butter
(B) travel to market at night
(C) manufacture butter more quickly
(D) produce ice all year round
11. The "produce" mentioned in line 25 could include
(A) iceboxes
(B) butter
(C) ice
(D) markets

PASSAGE 2
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. It dissolves, transports, and precipitates many chemical compounds and is constantly modifying the face of the Earth. Evaporated from the oceans, water vapor forms clouds, some of which are transported by 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 form brooks, streams, and
rivers, constituting what are called the hydrographic network. This immense polarized network channels the water toward a single receptacle: an ocean. Gravity dominates this entire step in the
cycle because water tends to minimize its potential energy by running from high altitudes toward the reference point, that is, sea level.
The rate at which a molecule of water passes though the cycle is not random but is a measure of the relative size of the various reservoirs. If we define residence time as the average time for awater molecule to pass through one of the three reservoirs — atmosphere, continent, and ocean —we see that the times are very different. A water molecule stays, on average, eleven days in the atmosphere, one hundred years on a continent and forty thousand years in the ocean. This last figure shows the importance of the ocean as the principal reservoir of the hydrosphere but also the rapidity of water transport on the continents.
A vast chemical separation process takes places during the flow of water over the continents. 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 thethin, fertile skin of soil on which vegetation can grow. Sometimes soils are destroyed and transported mechanically during flooding. The erosion of the continents thus results from two closely linked and interdependent processes chemical erosion and mechanical erosion. Their respective interactions and efficiency depend on different factors.
1. The word "modifying" in line 4 is closest in meaning to
(A) changing
(B) traveling
(C) describing
(D) destroying
2. The word "which" in line 5 refers to
(A) clouds
(B) oceans
(C) continents
(D) compounds
3. According to the passage , clouds are primarily formed by water
(A) precipitating onto the ground
(B) changing from a solid to a liquid state
(C) evaporating from the oceans
(D) being carried by wind
4. The passage suggests that the purpose of the "hydrographic network" (line 8) is to
(A) determine the size of molecules of water
(B) prevent soil erosion caused by flooding
(C) move water from the Earth's surface to the oceans
(D) regulate the rate of water flow from streams and rivers
5. What determines the rate at which a molecule of water moves through the cycle, as discussed in
the third paragraph?
(A) The potential energy contained in water
(B) The effects of atmospheric pressure on chemical compounds
(C) The amounts of rainfall that fall on the continents
(D) The relative size of the water storage areas
6. The word "rapidity" in line 19 is closest in meaning to
(A) significance
(B) method
(C) swiftness
(D) reliability
7. The word "they" in line 24 refers to (A) insoluble ions
(B) soluble ions
(C) soils
(D) continents
8. All of the following are example of soluble ions EXCEPT
(A) magnesium
(B) iron
(C) potassium
(D) calcium
9. The word "efficiency" in line 27 is closest in meaning to
(A) relationship
(B) growth
(C) influence
(D) effectiveness

答案： PASSAGE 1  BBACC DBCDA B   
    PASSAGE 2  AACCD CABD

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