托福阅读真题Official 52 Passage 3（一）

托福阅读真题Official 52 Passage 3（一）

Early Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa

At the end of the Pleistocene(around 10,000 B.C.),the technologies of food production may have already been employed on the fringes of the rain forests of western and central Africa,where the common use of such root plants as the African yam led people to recognize the advantages of growing their own food.The yam can easily be resprouted if the top is replanted.This primitive form of“vegeculture”(cultivation of root and tree crops)may have been the economic tradition onto which the cultivation of summer rainfall cereal crops was grafted as it came into use south of the grassland areas on the Sahara’s southern borders.

As the Sahara dried up after 5000 B.C.,pastoral peoples(cattle herders)moved southward along major watercourses into the savanna belt of West Africa and the Sudan.By 3000 B.C.,just as ancient Egyptian civilization was coming into being along the Nile,they had settled in the heart of the East African highlands far to the south.The East African highlands are ideal cattle country and the home today of such famous cattle-herding peoples as the Masai.The highlands were inhabited by hunter-gatherers living around mountains near the plains until about 3300 B.C.,when the first cattle herders appeared.These cattle people may have moved between fixed settlements during the wet and dry seasons,living off hunting in the dry months and their own livestock and agriculture during the rains.

As was the case elsewhere,cattle were demanding animals in Africa.They required water at least every 24 hours and large tracts of grazing grass if herds of any size were to be maintained.The secret was the careful selection of grazing land,especially in environments where seasonal rainfall led to marked differences in graze quality throughout the year.Even modest cattle herds required plenty of land and considerable mobility.To acquire such land often required moving herds considerable distances,even from summer to winter pastures.At the same time,the cattle owners had to graze their stock in tsetse-fly-free areas.The only protection against human and animal sleeping sickness,a disease carried by the tsetse fly,was to avoid settling or farming such areas—a constraint severely limiting the movements of cattle-owning farmers in eastern and central Africa.As a result,small cattle herds spread south rapidly in areas where they could be grazed.Long before cereal agriculture took hold far south of the Sahara,some hunter-gatherer groups in the savanna woodlands of eastern and southern Africa may have acquired cattle,and perhaps other domesticated animals,by gift exchange or through raids on herding neighbors.

Contrary to popular belief,there is no such phenomenon as“pure”pastoralists,a society that subsists on its herds alone.The Saharan herders who moved southward to escape drought were almost certainly also cultivating sorghum,millet,and other tropical rainfall crops.By 1500 B.C.,cereal agriculture was widespread throughout the savanna belt south of the Sahara.Small farming communities dotted the grasslands and forest margins of eastern West Africa,all of them depending on what is called shifting agriculture.This form of agriculture involved clearing woodland,burning the felled brush over the cleared plot,mixing the ash into the soil,and then cultivating the prepared fields.After a few years,the soil was exhausted,so the farmer moved on,exploiting new woodland and leaving the abandoned fields to lie fallow.Shifting agriculture,often called slash-and-burn,was highly adaptive for savanna farmers without plows,for it allowed cereal farming with the minimal expenditure of energy.

The process of clearance and burning may have seemed haphazard to the uninformed eye,but it was not.Except in favored areas,such as regularly inundated floodplains,tropical Africa’s soils were of only moderate to low fertility.The art of farming was careful soil selection,that is,knowing which soils were light and easily cultivable,could be readily turned with small hoes,and would maintain their fertility over several years’planting,for cereal crops rapidly remove nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil.Once it had taken hold,slash-and-burn agriculture expanded its frontiers rapidly as village after village took up new lands,moving forward so rapidly that one expert has estimated it took a mere two centuries to cover 2,000 kilometers from eastern to southern Africa.

Question 1 of 14

According to paragraph 1,which of the following is true of early food production by the end of the Pleistocene?

A.In certain areas of western and central Africa,some people were already growing root plants such as yams.

B.The cultivation of cereal crops had already been used effectively and widely by people living on the fringes of rain forests.

C.Sophisticated forms of“vegeculture”were introduced for the first time in central and western Africa by people from the Sahara’s southern borders.

D.The cultivation of root and tree crops replaced the cultivation of cereal crops because of decreasing summer rainfall in grassland areas.

正确答案：A

题目详解

题型分类：事实信息题

原文定位：整个段落都在讨论early food production，可直接通过选项定位。

选项分析：

A选项：对应第1句，其中In certain areas of western and central Africa对应原文rain forests of western and central Africa；growing root plants such as yams对应原文common use of such root plants as the African yam，同义替换，故选A。

B选项：原文说The cultivation of cereal crops在Sahara’s southern borders，而不是在fringes of rain forests张冠李戴。

C选项：Sophisticated forms of“vegeculture”were introduced未提及，无中生有。

D选项：replaced the cultivation of cereal crops未提及，无中生有。

Question 2 of 14

Paragraph 2 mentions all of the following as developments in Sub-Saharan Africa from 5000 to 3000 B.C.EXCEPT:

A.The Sahara dried up.

B.Ancient Egyptian civilization started to form along the Nile.

C.The inhabitants of the East African highlands gave up hunting when cattle herders arrived.

D.Pastoral peoples moved through the savanna belt to settle in the East African highlands.

正确答案：C

题目详解

题型分类：否定事实信息题

原文定位：整个段落都在讨论developments in Sub-Saharan Africa，可直接通过选项定位。

选项分析：

C选项gave up hunting未提及，无中生有。

A选项出自于第一句As the Sahara dried up after 5000 B.C.,pastoral peoples(cattle herders)moved southward along major watercourses into the savanna belt of West Africa and the Sudan。

B选项出自于第二句By 3000 B.C.,just as ancient Egyptian civilization was coming into being along the Nile,they had settled in the heart of the East African highlands far to the south。

D选项出自于第一、二句As the Sahara dried up after 5000 B.C.,pastoral peoples(cattle herders)moved southward along major watercourses into the savanna belt of West Africa and the Sudan.By 3000 B.C...settled in the heart of the East African highlands far to the south。