托福阅读考试解析

                        南京学校 邹中杰

考试日期：2014年3月15日

Reading Passage 1

Title:


Gliding animal

Question types:

文章内容回顾：


主题：生物类话题

主要讲述gliding animal的生活习性等相关特点，其中有涉及动物类素材常考察的因果关系文章结构和话题。

难度分析：


生物类话题，在托福阅读考试中较为常见，文章结构是因果类结构，考生在平时的学习中要注意相关素材和文章背景知识的积累。

相关背景内容：


A number of animals have evolved aerial locomotion, either by powered flight or by gliding. Flying and gliding animals have evolved separately many times, without any single ancestor. Flight has evolved at least four times, in the insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. Gliding has evolved on many more occasions. Usually the development is to aid canopy animals in getting from tree to tree, although there are other possibilities. Gliding, in particular, has evolved among rainforest animals, especially in the rainforests in Asia (most especially Borneo) where the trees are tall and widely spaced. Several species of aquatic animals, and a few amphibious animals have also evolved to acquire this gliding flight ability, typically as a means of evading predators.

Reading Passage 2

Title:


美国的siol和cropland的恢复

Question types:

文章内容回顾：


主题：人文社科类话题

文章主要描述美国soil问题，其中涉及美国国土的西进运动背景素材考察。其次也讲述到cropland的恢复问题，相关背景知识建议考生通过wiki查看。

难度分析：


人文社科类话题，文章结构是对比+问题型文章结构，框架结构较为清晰。学生对于这一题材的阅读都较为熟悉，所以文章总体难度不大。

建议在备考中多加参看wiki，尤其注意近年考试中频繁出现的北美类素材知识的考察。

相关背景内容：


In geography and agriculture, arable land (from Latin arāre; “To plough, To farm”) is land ploughed or tilled regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation.

According to definitions and survey recommendations by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), used by for example Eurostat and the World Bank, arable land is agricultural land occupied by crops both sown and harvested during the same agricultural year, sometimes more than once. Land is also considered arable if used as temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, market and kitchen gardens; as well as temporarily fallow land — not seeded for one or more growing seasons, yet not left idle for more than five years.

Permanent crops that occupy the land for a number of years, and don't need replanting after each annual harvest — like coffee, rubber, flowering shrubs, fruit, nut trees and vines — are not counted as existing on arable land, but as existing on permanent cropland

Permanent pastures and meadows used for grazing, land mowed for hay or silage not included in a crop rotation scheme, and abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is also not counted as arable, along with lands with built-on and barren areas, forests and woodlands.

Reading Passage 3

Title:

海洋对于全球气候的影响

Question types:

文章内容回顾：

主题 环境学类素材

文中主要讲述了海洋分布对于气候的影响，这一素材也是ETS在近年考试中较为喜欢涉及的素材。

一方面根据海洋的分布来讲述气候的变化，另一方面，根据海水的波动性来阐述气候的特点。

难度分析：

环境生态学素材在托福阅读中是比较常见的素材，其中，大多以对比类结构出现，这篇也不例外，考生需要在此方面下功夫。

相关背景内容：

An ocean (from Ancient Greek Ὠκεανός (Okeanos); the World Ocean of classical antiquity) is a body of saline water that composes much of a planet's hydrosphere.On Earth, an ocean is one of the major conventional divisions of the World Ocean, which occupies two-thirds of planet's surface. These are, in descending order by area, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern (Antarctic), and Arctic Oceans. The word sea is often used interchangeably with "ocean" in American English but, strictly speaking, a sea is a body of saline water (generally a division of the World Ocean) that land partly or fully encloses.

Earth is the only planet that is known to have an ocean (or any large amounts of open liquid water). Saline water covers approximately 72% of the planet's surface (~3.6x108 km2) and is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas, with the ocean covering approximately 71% of the Earth's surface.The ocean contains 97% of the Earth's water, and oceanographers have stated that only 5% of the World Ocean has been explored. The total volume is approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometres (310 million cu mi)[7] with an average depth of 3,682 metres (12,080 ft)