托福阅读真题Official 45 Passage 1（七）

托福阅读真题Official 45 Passage 1（七）

The Beringia Landscape

During the peak of the last ice age,northeast Asia(Siberia)and Alaska were connected by a broad land mass called the Bering Land Bridge.This land bridge existed because so much of Earth’s water was frozen in the great ice sheets that sea levels were over 100 meters lower than they are today.Between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago,Siberia,the Bering Land Bridge,and Alaska shared many environmental characteristics.These included a common mammalian fauna of large mammals,a common flora composed of broad grasslands as well as wind-swept dunes and tundra,and a common climate with cold,dry winters and somewhat warmer summers.The recognition that many aspects of the modern flora and fauna were present on both sides of the Bering Sea as remnants of the ice-age landscape led to this region being named Beringia.

It is through Beringia that small groups of large mammal hunters,slowly expanding their hunting territories,eventually colonized North and South America.On this archaeologists generally agree,but that is where the agreement stops.One broad area of disagreement in explaining the peopling of the Americas is the domain of paleoecologists,but it is critical to understanding human history:what was Beringia like?

The Beringian landscape was very different from what it is today.Broad,windswept valleys;glaciated mountains;sparse vegetation;and less moisture created a rather forbidding land mass.This land mass supported herds of now-extinct species of mammoth,bison,and horse and somewhat modern versions of caribou,musk ox,elk,and saiga antelope.These grazers supported in turn a number of impressive carnivores,including the giant short-faced bear,the saber-tooth cat,and a large species of lion.

The presence of mammal species that require grassland vegetation has led Arctic biologist Dale Guthrie to argue that while cold and dry,there must have been broad areas of dense vegetation to support herds of mammoth,horse,and bison.Further,nearly all of the ice-age fauna had teeth that indicate an adaptation to grasses and sedges;they could not have been supported by a modern flora of mosses and lichens.Guthrie has also demonstrated that the landscape must have been subject to intense and continuous winds,especially in winter.He makes this argument based on the anatomy of horse and bison,which do not have the ability to search for food through deep snow cover.They need landscapes with strong winds that remove the winter snows,exposing the dry grasses beneath.Guthrie applied the term“mammoth steppe”to characterize this landscape.

In contrast,Paul Colinvaux has offered a counterargument based on the analysis of pollen in lake sediments dating to the last ice age.He found that the amount of pollen recovered in these sediments is so low that the Beringian landscape during the peak of the last glaciation was more likely to have been what he termed a“polar desert,”with little or only sparse vegetation.In no way was it possible that this region could have supported large herds of mammals and thus,human hunters.Guthrie has argued against this view by pointing out that radiocarbon analysis of mammoth,horse,and bison bones from Beringian deposits revealed that the bones date to the period of most intense glaciation.

The argument seemed to be at a standstill until a number of recent studies resulted in a spectacular suite of new finds.The first was the discovery of a 1,000-square-kilometer preserved patch of Beringian vegetation dating to just over 17,000 years ago—the peak of the last ice age.The plants were preserved under a thick ash fall from a volcanic eruption.Investigations of the plants found grasses,sedges,mosses,and many other varieties in a nearly continuous cover,as was predicted by Guthrie.But this vegetation had a thin root mat with no soil formation,demonstrating that there was little long-term stability in plant cover,a finding supporting some of the arguments of Colinvaux.A mixture of continuous but thin vegetation supporting herds of large mammals is one that seems plausible and realistic with the available data.

Question 13 of 14

Look at the four squares[■]that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.Nevertheless,large animals managed to survive in Beringia.Where would the sentence best fit?Click on a square[■]to add the sentence to the passage.

正确答案：B

题目详解

题型分类：插入句子题

题干分析：考察句子和句子之间的衔接判断。插入句“然而，大型动物成功在白令陆桥生存”，插入句有一个nevertheless表示转折，这说明插入句前一句在说不利于大型动物生存的条件。

选项分析：

B选项，第二空前一句描述了白令陆桥的恶劣环境，与插入句“大型动物成功生存”构成转折关系。所以填第二个空。

A选项，第一个空前一句说白令陆桥过去的景象和现在完全不同，而第一空后一句具体描述了白令陆桥的景象：宽的，当风的谷；冻成冰的山；稀疏的植被；较少的水汽制造了一个令人生畏的陆块。这两句之间没有转折关系，所以不填第一个空。

C选项，第三空后一句有these grazers，指代前一句出现的动物，中间不可以插入句子。

D选项，第四空前一句说很多动物在这里生活，和插入句不构成转折关系。

Question 14 of 14

Directions:An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below.Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage.Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage.This question is worth 2 points.

During the last ice age,human hunters pursued large mammals across Beringia,a land whose climatic characteristics have been in dispute.

Answer Choices:

A.

Strong evidence indicates that large mammals like mammoth and bison survived in the harsh ice-age Beringian landscape.

B.

Beringian mammals crossed easily from northeastern Asia to Alaska across the Bering Land Bridge,though there are indications that they usually went back to Asia for the brief,but warm,summers.

C.

Carnivores such as the saber-tooth cat were primarily responsible for the disappearance of the largest of the grazing animals,but the harsh winters caused some grazers to die of starvation.

D.

Analyses of ice-age sediments uncovered very small amounts of pollen,suggesting that Beringia lacked the quantity of vegetation needed to support large herds of mammals.

E.

The discovery that grasses,sedges,and mosses survived under the thick ash from a large volcanic eruption proved that the ice-age Beringian plant cover was extremely resistant to climatic extremes.

F.

Recent discoveries suggest that shallow-rooted plants created a fairly continuous cover over ice-age Beringia,though the cover most likely was variable and uncertain in any one location.

正确答案：ADF

题目详解

题型分类：文章总结题

题干分析：选择概括性的正确选项

选项分析：

A选项为第四段重要信息。large mammals like mammoth and bison survived对应第四段第一句dense vegetation to support herds of mammoth,horse,and bison。

D选项为第五段重要信息。very small amounts of pollen对应第五段第二句so low，lacked the quantity of vegetation对应第五段第二句little or only sparse vegetation。

F选项为第六段重要信息。shallow-rooted plants created a fairly continuous cover对应第六段最后一句continuous but thin vegetation。

B选项与第一段内容有关，但是usually went back to Asia的说法无中生有。

C选项与第三段内容有关，但是responsible for the disappearance of the largest of the grazing animals无中生有。

E选项与第六段内容有关，但是resistant to climatic extremes无中生有。