托福阅读历年真题精选12
Question 10-19Geographers say that what defines a place are four properties: soil, climate, altitude,
and aspect, or attitude to the Sun. Florida’s ancient scrub demonstrates this principle. Its
soil is pure silica, so barren it supports only lichens as ground cover.( It does, however,
sustain a sand-swimming lizard that cannot live where there is moisture or plant matter
(5) the soil.) Its climate, despite more than 50 inches of annual rainfall, is blistering desert
plant life it can sustain is only the xerophytic, the quintessentially dry. Its altitude is a
mere couple of hundred feet, but it is high ground on a peninsula elsewhere close to sea
level, and its drainage is so critical that a difference of inches in elevation can bring major
changes in its plant communities. Its aspect is flat, direct, brutal—and subtropical.
Florida’s surrounding lushness cannot impinge on its desert scrubbiness.
This does not sound like an attractive place. It does not look much like one either;
Shrubby little oaks, clumps of scraggly bushes, prickly pear, thorns, and tangles. “It appear
Said one early naturalist,” to desire to display the result of the misery through which it has
Passed and is passing.” By our narrow standards, scrub is not beautiful; neither does it meet
our selfish utilitarian needs. Even the name is an epithet, a synonym for the stunted, the
scruffy, the insignificant, what is beautiful about such a place?
The most important remaining patches of scrub lie along the Lake Wales Ridge, a chain of paleoislands running for a hundred miles down the center of Florida, in most places less than ten miles wide. It is relict seashore, tossed up millions of years ago when ocean levels
(20) were higher and the rest of the peninsula was submerged. That ancient emergence is
precisely what makes Lake Wales Ridge so precious: it has remained unsubmerged, its
ecosystems essentially undisturbed, since the Miocene era. As a result, it has gathered to
itself one of the largest collections of rare organisms in the world. Only about 75 plant
species survive there, but at least 30 of these are found nowhere else on Earth.
10. What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) How geographers define a place
(B) The characteristics of Florida’s ancient scrub
(C) An early naturalist’s opinion of Florida
(D)The history of the Lake Wales Ridge
11. The author mentions all of the following as factors that define a place EXCEPT
(A) aspect
(B) altitude
(C) soil
(D) life-forms
12. It can be inferred from the passage that soil composed of silica
(A) does not hold moisture
(B) is found only in Florida
(C) nourishes many kinds of ground cover
(D) provides food for many kinds of lizards
托福阅读历年真题精选12
13. The word” sustain” in line 6 is closets in meaning to</p>(A) select(B) strain
(C) support
(D) store
14. The author mentions the prickly pear (line 12) as an example of
(A) valuable fruit-bearing plants of the scrub area
(B) unattractive plant life of the scrub area
(C) a pant discovered by an early naturalist
(D) plant life that is extremely are
15. The author suggests that human standards of beauty are
(A) tolerant
(B) idealistic
(C) defensible
(D) limited
16. The word “insignificant” in line 16 is closest in meaning to
(A) unimportant
(B) undisturbed
(C) immature
(D) inappropriate
17. According to the passage, why is the Lake Wales Ridge valuable?
(A) It was originally submerged in the ocean.
(B) It is less than ten miles wide.
(C) It is located near the seashore.
(D) It has ecosystems that have long remained unchanged
18. The word “it” in line 22 refer to
(A) Florida
(B) the peninsula
(C) the Lake Wales Ridge
(D) the Miocene era
19. The passage probably continues with a discussion of
(A) ancient scrub found in other areas of the country
(B) geographers who study Florida’s scrub
(C) the climate of the Lake Wales Ridge
(D) the unique plants found on the Lake Wales Ridge
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