托福阅读历年真题精选38
Question 10-19Both in what is now the eastern and the southwestern United States, the peoples of
the Archaic era (8,000-1,000 B.C) were, in a way, already adapted to beginnings of
cultivation through their intensive gathering and processing of wild plant foods. In both
areas, there was a well-established ground stone tool technology, a method of pounding
(5)and grinding nuts and other plant foods, that could be adapted to newly cultivated foods.
By the end of the Archaic era, people in eastern North America had domesticated certain
native plants, including sunflowers; weeds called goosefoot, sumpweed, or marsh elder;
and squash or gourds of some kind. These provided seeds that were important sources of carbohydrates and fat in the diet.
(10)The earliest cultivation seems to have taken place along the river valleys of the
Midwest and the Southeast, with experimentation beginning as early as 7,000 years ago
and domestication beginning 4,000 to 2,000 years ago. Although the term “Neolithic” is
not used in North American prehistory, these were the first steps toward the same major subsistence changes that took place during the Neolithic (8,000-2,000 B.C.) period
(15)elsewhere in the world.
Archaeologists debate the reasons for beginning cultivation in the eastern part of the
continent. Although population and sedentary living were increasing at the time, there is
little evidence that people lacked adequate wild food resources; the newly domesticated
foods supplemented a continuing mixed subsistence of hunting, fishing, and gathering
(20)wild plants, Increasing predictability of food supplies may have been a motive. It has been suggested that some early cultivation was for medicinal and ceremonial plants rather than
for food. One archaeologist has pointed out that the early domesticated plants were all
weedy species that do well in open, disturbed habitats, the kind that would form around
human settlements where people cut down trees, trample the ground, deposit trash, and
(25)dig holes. It has been suggested that sunflower, sumpweed, and other plants almost
domesticated themselves, that is , they thrived in human –disturbed habitats, so humans intensively collected them and began to control their distribution. Women in the Archaic communities were probably the main experimenters with cultivation, because
ethnoarchaeological evidence tells us that women were the main collectors of plant food
and had detailed knowledge of plants.
10. The passage mainly discusses which of the following aspects of the life of Archaic peoples?
(A) The principal sources of food that made up their diet
(B) Their development of ground stone tool technology
(C) Their development of agriculture
(D) Their distribution of work between men and women
11. The word “these” in line 13 refers to
(A)seeds
(B)river valleys
(C)the Midwest and the Southeast
(D) experimentation and domestication
12 According to the passage, when did the domestication of plants begin in North America?
(A) 7,000 years ago
(B) 4,000 to 2,000 years ago
(C) Long after the Neolithic period
(D) Before the Archaic period
托福阅读历年真题精选38
13. The word “adequate” in line 18 is closest in meaning to </p> (A) sufficient(B) healthful
(C) varied
(D) dependable
14. According to the passage, which of the following was a possible motive for the cultivation of plants in eastern North America?
(A) Lack of enough wild food sources
(B) The need to keep trees from growing close to settlements
(C) Provision of work for an increasing population
Desire for the consistent availability of food
15. The phrase “rather than” in line 21 is closest in meaning to
in addition to
instead of
as a replacement
such as
16. The plant “sumpweed” is mentioned in line 25 in order to
(A) contrast a plant with high nutritional value with one with little nutritional value
(B) explain the medicinal use of a plant
(C) clarify which plants grew better in places where trees were not cut down
(D) provide an example of a plant that was easy to domesticate
17. The word “thrived” in line 26 is closest in meaning to
(A) stayed
(B) originated
(C) grew well
(D) died out
18. According to the passage, which of the following is true about all early domesticated plants?
(A) They were varieties of weeds.
(B) They were moved from disturbed areas.
(C) They succeeded in areas with many trees.
(D) They failed to grow in trampled or damaged areas.
19. According to the passage, it is thought that most of the people who began cultivating plants were
(A) medical workers
(B) leaders of ceremonies
(C) women
(D) hunters
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