託福閱讀真題及答案精選
託福閱讀中，無論是閱讀速度還是解題技巧，亦或是長難句，每一種因素都會成爲同學們閱讀高分路上的重要障礙。因此，大家最好的備考方式，就是利用真題練習，從整體上來備考，這樣有助於我們提高整體的閱讀水平。本站爲大家推薦的是託福閱讀真題精選，供大家練習。
託福閱讀真題1
Tulips are Old World, rather than New World, plants, with the origins of the species lying in Central Asia. They became an integral part of the gardens of the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth century onward, and, soon after, part of European life as well. Holland, in particular, became famous for its cultivation of the flower.
A tenuous line marked the advance of the tulip to the New World, where it was unknown in the wild. The first Dutch colonies in North America had been established in New Netherlands by the Dutch West India Company in 1624, and one individual who settled in New Amsterdam (today's Manhattan section of New York City) in 1642 described the flowers that bravely colonized the settlers' gardens. They were the same flowers seen in Dutch still-life paintings of the time: crown imperials, roses, carnations, and of course tulips. They flourished in Pennsylvania too, where in 1698 William Penn received a report of John Tateham's Great and Stately Palace, its garden full of tulips. By 1760, Boston newspapers were advertising 50 different kinds of mixed tulip roots. But the length of the journey between Europe and North America created many difficulties. Thomas Hancock, an English settler, wrote thanking his plant supplier for a gift of some tulip bulbs from England, but his letter the following year grumbled that they were all dead.
Tulips arrived in Holland, Michigan, with a later wave of early nineteenth-century Dutch immigrants who quickly colonized the plains of Michigan. Together with many other Dutch settlements, such as the one at Pella, Iowa, they established a regular demand for European plants. The demand was bravely met by a new kind of tulip entrepreneur, the traveling salesperson. One Dutchman, Hendrick van der Schoot, spent six months in 1849 traveling through the United States taking orders for tulip bulbs. While tulip bulbs were traveling from Europe to the United States to satisfy the nostalgic longings of homesick English and Dutch settlers, North American plants were traveling in the opposite direction. In England, the enthusiasm for American plants was one reason why tulips dropped out of fashion in the gardens of the rich and famous.
1. Which of the following questions does the passage mainly answer?
(A) What is the difference between an Old World and a New World plant?
(B) Why are tulips grown in many different parts of the world?
(C) How did tulips become popular in North America?
(D) Where were the first Dutch colonies in North America located?
2. The word integral in line 2 is closest in meaning to
(A) interesting
(B) fundamental
(C) ornamental
(D) overlooked
3. The passage mentions that tulips were first found in which of the following regions?
(A) Central Asia
(B) Western Europe
(C) India
(D) North America
4. The word flourished in line 11 is closest in meaning to
(A) were discovered
(B) were marketed
(C) combined
(D) thrived
5. The author mentions tulip growing in New Netherlands, Pennsylvania. and Michigan in order to
illustrate how
(A) imported tulips were considered more valuable than locally grown tulips
(B) tulips were commonly passed as gifts from one family to another
(C) tulips grew progressively more popular in North America
(D) attitudes toward tulips varied from one location to another
6. The word grumbled in line 16 is closest in meaning to
(A) denied
(B) warned
(C) complained
(D) explained
7. The passage mentions that one reason English and Dutch settlers planted tulips in their
gardens was that tulips
(A) were easy to grow
(B) had become readily available
(C) made them appear fashionable
(D) reminded them of home
8. The word they in line 20 refers to
(A) tulips
(B) plains
(C) immigrants
(D) plants
9. According to the passage , which of the following changes occurred in English gardens during
the European settlement of North America?
(A) They grew in size in order to provide enough plants to export to the New World.
(B) They contained a wider variety of tulips than ever before.
(C) They contained many new types of North American plants.
(D) They decreased in size on the estates of wealthy people.
10. The passage mentions which of the following as a problem associated with the importation of
tulips into North America?
(A) They were no longer fashionable by the time they arrived.
(B) They often failed to survive the journey.
(C) Orders often took six months or longer to fill.
(D) Settlers knew little about how to cultivate them.
PASSAGE 85 CBADC CDCCB
託福閱讀真題2
The smooth operation of an ant colony depends on ten to twenty different signals, most of which are pheromones (chemical signals triggering behavioral responses). It is estimated that red fire ants employ at least twelve different chemical signals. The simplest of these is the carbon dioxide from the respiration of an ant cluster, a chemical that acts as a pheromone to promote aggregation. Workers move toward a source of carbon dioxide, resulting in solitary ants moving to join a group. At the other extreme, the most complex of the fire ants' signals is probably colony odor, by which the workers of a particular colony or nest identify another worker as local or foreign. Each ant nest has its own odor as a result of its location, history, and local food supply. The resident ants pick up this odor on their bodies, so that ants of the same species, but from different nests, have different colony odors. This allows ants to identify intruders and maintain colony integrity.
Fire ants also make use of an alarm pheromone to alert workers to an emergency, and their scouts lay down a trail pheromone as a guide during mass migrations. A fire ant queen emits a chemical signal that identifies her to the colony's workers. They respond by scurrying to gather around her. The decomposing corpse of a dead ant also generates a signal, to which workers respond by eliminating the corpse from the nest.
Ants provide examples of both public (accessible to other species) and private messages. One of their most important private messages concerns food, for a food source is worth keeping secret. Each species marks its trails with signals that are meaningless to others, so that an ant crossing a trail left by another ant species typically notices nothing. On the other hand, a secret signal to mark a dead body is unnecessary. Many kinds of ants perceive a natural decomposition product of dead insects as a signal to remove a corpse. If an outsider recognizes this message and moves the body, no harm is done.
1. What aspect of ants does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) The relationship between the queen and the worker ants
(B) Ways in which ants use chemical signals
(C) Methods ants use to identify food sources
(D) The importance of respiration in the production of ant pheromones
2. The phrase smooth operation in line 1 is closest in meaning to
(A) daily activity
(B) effective functioning
(C) delicate balance
(D) permanent location
3. According to the passage , carbon dioxide serves which of the following functions for fire ants?
(A) It protects the queen.
(B) It attracts other ant species.
(C) It informs workers of possible danger.
(D) It encourages the ants to gather together.
4. The word cluster in line 4 is closest in meaning to
(A) organ
(B) activity
(C) group
(D) cycle
5. According to the passage , each nest has a distinct odor that allows its inhabitants to
(A) find the location of the nest in the dark
(B) distinguish worker ants from other ants
(C) distinguish foreign ants from resident ants
(D) signal other inhabitants when foreign ants attack
6. The word alert in line 13 is closest in meaning to
(A) allow
(B) transport
(C) warn
(D) provide
7. What is the role of pheromones in the mass migrations of ants?
(A) Pheromones are used to create a trail that directs the ants during migrations.
(B) Pheromones signal the ants that the nest has been invaded and must be abandoned.
(C) Pheromones control the speed at which ants move from one location to another.
(D) Pheromones enable scouts to identify suitable areas for establishing a new nest.
8. The word scurrying in line 16 is closest in meaning to
(A) agreeing
(B) appearing
(C) competing
(D) rushing
9. The word others in line 21 refers to
(A) private messages
(B) species
(C) trails
(D) signals
10. Why does the author mention dead insects in line 23?
(A) To compare the social behaviors of ants with those of other insects
(B) To emphasize the dangers that all insects encounter
(C) To argue the superiority of ants over other insects
(D) To indicate a behavior that is common among various kinds of ants
11. Which of the following terms is defined in the passage ?
(A) pheromones (line 2)
(B) colony integrity (lines 12)
(C) mass migrations (line 14)
(D) private messages (lines 18-19)
PASSAGE 86 BBDCC CADBD A
託福閱讀真題3
Because the low latitudes of the Earth, the areas near the equator, receive more heat than the latitudes near the poles, and because the nature of heat is to expand and move, heat is transported from the tropics to the middle and high latitudes. Some of this heat is moved by winds and some by ocean currents, and some gets stored in the atmosphere in the form of latent heat. The term latent heat refers to the energy that has to be used to convert liquid water to water vapor. We know that if we warm a pan of water on a stove, it will evaporate, or turn into vapor, faster than if it is allowed to sit at room temperature. We also know that if we hang wet clothes outside in the summertime they will dry faster than in winter, when temperatures are colder. The energy used in both cases to change liquid water to water vapor is supplied by heat — supplied by the stove in the first case and by the Sun in the latter case. This energy is not lost. It is stored in water vapor in the atmosphere as latent heat. Eventually, the water stored as vapor in the atmosphere will condense to liquid again, and the energy will be released to the atmosphere.
In the atmosphere, a large portion of the Sun's incoming energy is used to evaporate water, primarily in the tropical oceans. Scientists have tried to quantify this proportion of the Sun's energy. By analyzing temperature, water vapor, and wind data around the globe, they have estimated the quantity to be about 90 watts per square meter, or nearly 30 percent of the Sun's energy. Once this latent heat is stored within the atmosphere, it can be transported, primarily to higher latitudes, by prevailing, large-scale winds. Or it can be transported vertically to higher levels in the atmosphere, where it forms clouds and subsequent storms, which then release the energy back to the atmosphere.
1. The passage mainly discusses how heat
(A) is transformed and transported in the Earth's atmosphere
(B) is transported by ocean currents
(C) can be measured and analyzed by scientists
(D) moves about the Earth's equator
2. The passage mentions that the tropics differ from the Earth's polar regions in which of the
following ways?
(A) The height of cloud formation in the atmosphere.
(B) The amount of heat they receive from the Sun.
(C) The strength of their large scale winds.
(D) The strength of their oceanic currents.
3. The word convert in line 6 is closest in meaning to
(A) mix
(B) change
(C) adapt
(D) reduce
4. Why does the author mention the stove in line 10?
(A) To describe the heat of the Sun.
(B) To illustrate how water vapor is stored.
(C) To show how energy is stored.
(D) To give an example of a heat source.
5. According to the passage , most ocean water evaporation occurs especially
(A) around the higher latitudes
(B) in the tropics
(C) because of large-scale winds
(D) because of strong ocean currents
6. According to the passage , 30 percent of the Sun's incoming energy
(A) is stored in clouds in the lower latitudes
(B) is transported by ocean currents
(C) never leaves the upper atmosphere
(D) gets stored as latent heat
7. The word it in line 18 refers to
(A) square meter
(B) the Sun's energy
(C) latent heat
(D) the atmosphere
8. The word primarily in the line 19 is closest in meaning to
(A) chiefly
(B) originally
(C) basically
(D) clearly
9. The word prevailing in line 19 is closest in meaning to
(A) essential
(B) dominant
(C) circular
(D) closest
10. All of the following words are defined in the passage EXCEPT
(A) low latitudes(line 1)
(B) latent heat (line 5)
(C) evaporate (line 7)
(D) atmosphere (line 14)
PASSAGE 87 ABBDB DCABD
託福閱讀真題精選
