1.词汇题

harsh＝severe

conduct＝carry out

confined=limited

found wanting=inadequate托福培训费用

remote=distant

associate with=connected to

inevitable=necessary

vulnerable=easily damaged

duration=length

distinctive=characteristic

2.文章回忆

第一篇：shaker basket

第一段讲了shaker是一个19世纪生活在美国东北部地区的宗教组群，他们比较独特的一点是与外界隔离，一直在使用他们当地的资源自给自足，他们对于basket的value在于实用性（utility）而不是装饰。

第二段重点讲了shaker在制作basket上面的进步，主要从用料，形式，应用的角度去阐述。先说虽然shaker的basket和美洲人的basket的材料都是ash wood，但是形式是不一样的。举例在制作basket中加入皮革，可以增强（reinforce）最薄弱的地方（vulnerable），还有干燥的作用。

第三段讲了shaker如何将basket如何去跟其他地区的人们进行交流。比如一个社区的首领（religious leader）会在各个社区中游走，来促进交流和转变，于是就出现了工艺现代化。

第一篇阅读解析：

本文围绕着shaker生产篮子这一考古发现展开。与考古学相关的话题是托福阅读中经常出现的话题，同时也是学生们比较头疼的题材。因为大多数时候，同学们的相关背景知识比较缺乏。

所以学生在备考的时候需要提前准备与考古相关的词汇，以免在阅读的过程中由于词汇的问题导致阅读准度下降和速度变慢。推荐阅读TPO12的which hand did they use和tpo23的Rock Art of the Australia Aborigines。同时安利同学们一部分段落，希望同学们能够认真解析。

tpo12

We all know that many more people today are right-handed than left-handed. Can one trace this same pattern far back in prehistory? Much of the evidence about right-hand versus left-hand dominance comes from stencils and prints found in rock shelters in Australia and elsewhere, and in many Ice Age caves in France, Spain, and Tasmania. When a left hand has been stenciled, this implies that the artist was right-handed, and vice versa. Even though the paint was often sprayed on by mouth, one can assume that the dominant hand assisted in the operation. One also has to make the assumption that hands were stenciled palm downward-a left hand stenciled palm upward might of course look as if it were a right hand. Of 158 stencils in the French cave of Gargas, 136 have been identified as left, and only 22 as right; right-handedness was therefore heavily predominant.

tpo23

Although the remarkable antiquity of Australia's rock art is now established, the sequences and meanings of its images have been widely debated. Since the mid-1970s, a reasonably stable picture has formed of the organization of Australian rock art. In order to create a sense of structure to this picture, researchers have relied on a distinction that still underlies the forms of much indigenous visual culture-a distinction between geometric and figurative elements. Simple geometric repeated patterns-circles, concentric circles, and lines-constitute the iconography (characteristic images) of the earliest rock-art sites found across Australia. The frequency with which certain simple motifs appear in these oldest sites has led rock-art researchers to adopt a descriptive term-the Panaramitee style-a label which takes its name from the extensive rock pavements at Panaramitee North in desert South Australia, which are covered with motifs pecked into the surface. Certain features of these engravings lead to the conclusion that they are of great age-geological changes had clearly happened after the designs had been made and local Aboriginal informants, when first questioned about them, seemed to know nothing of their origins. Furthermore, the designs were covered with "desert varnish," a glaze that develops on rock surfaces over thousands of years of exposure to the elements. The simple motifs found at Panaramitee are common to many rock-art sites across Australia. Indeed, sites with engravings of geometric shapes are also to be found on the island of Tasmania, which was separated from the mainland of the continent some 10,000 years ago.

第二篇：Global Agriculture：climate change and population growth

第一段总体概述中世纪欧洲农业发展的两个因素，环境改变和人口的压力。

第二段和第三段介绍了气候改变对农业发展的影响，先说冰河世纪（ice age）之后，气温开始回暖（milder），人们需要改变之前的工具，同时让更多的植物种植成为可能。造成了农业的发展

第四段和第五段介绍了人口对农业发展的影响，人口不断增长，所以人口需要不断扩展领地，更多的地点（sites）被人类所占据。之后举了一个例子，一个种族非常均匀分布（evenly distributed）的原因，就是迁移到人少的地方。

第二篇阅读解析：

讲农业类的文章在托福阅读当中也屡见不鲜，特别是某些因素产生相应影响类的文章更是极其普遍。此类文章具有的特点就是思路清晰，大部分都严格按照总分的形式展开，段落层次比较分明，同学们只要抓住主旨和各段分论点，就基本可以搞定此类文章。

同样，这里还要建议同学们参考一下与第二篇题材较类似的文章，来自tpo21-2的the origins of agriculture，文中有些信息与本文有相近之处。

tpo21

Climatic changes at the end of the glacial period 13,000 years ago have been proposed to account for the emergence of farming. The temperature increased dramatically in a short period of time (years rather than centuries), allowing for a growth of the hunting-gathering population due to the abundance of resources. There were, however, fluctuations in the climatic conditions, with the consequences that wet conditions were followed by dry ones, so that the availability of plants and animals oscillated brusquely.

It would appear that the instability of the climatic conditions led populations that had originally been nomadic to settle down and develop a sedentary style of life, which led in turn to population growth and to the need to increase the amount of food available. Farming originated in these conditions. Later on, it became very difficult to change because of the significant expansion of these populations. It could be argued, however, that these conditions are not sufficient to explain the origins of agriculture. Earth had experienced previous periods of climatic change, and yet agriculture had not been developed.

第三篇：Uniformitarianism and Earth's cycle

第一段：最早时期，地球上的一些地质特征（feature）是由于一些灾难（catastrophe）造成的。

第二段：但后来有一个科学家提出了一个地址周期（earth cycle），石头是山被腐蚀的碎片（debri），被水冲走，石头又堆积成山，反驳了上一个科学家的理论，形成了自己的理论Uniformitarianism，人们可以用这个理论推断地球的年份等问题。

第三段：科学家认为地质变化都是以一个不变的速率，不断的重复（repeat）形成了地球上现在的特征（feature），但是后来由于原子上的新的发现，导致人们认识到其实这个理论是错误的。

第四段－第五段：讲了我们所经历的历史时期比如ice age 在不同的时期并没有那么重要。

第三篇阅读解析：

然而地球的演变以及形成类的话题，已经成为了托福阅读中老生常谈的话题。其出现频率之高，涉及范围之广，相信也为众多考托学生制造了一个又一个的障碍。此类话题隶属于自然科学类，不同于社会科学类和人文科学类的篇章，此类话题少了一些抽象色彩，一切内容基本可以不太深入挖掘理解，便可得知其中的含义。所以此类文章中的词汇很少出现偏词，怪词，在阅读时候多注意细节的把握便可以handle文章。接下来推荐大家看一篇文章的段落，

Attempts at Determining Earth's Age

Yet another scheme for approximating Earth's age had been proposed in 1715 by Sir Edmund Halley (1656-1742), whose name we associate with the famous comet. Halley surmised that the ocean formed soon after the origin of the planet and therefore would be only slightly younger than the age of the solid Earth. He reasoned that the original ocean was not salty and that subsequently salt derived from the weathering of rocks was brought to the sea by streams. Thus, if one knew the total amount of salt dissolved in the ocean and the amount added each year, it might be possible to calculate the ocean's age in 1899, Irish geologist John Joly (1857-1933) attempted the calculation. From information provide by gauges placed at the mouths of streams. Joly was able to estimate the annual increment of salt to the oceans. Then, knowing the salinity of ocean water and the approximate volume of water, he calculated the amount of salt already held in solution in the oceans. An estimate of the age of the ocean was obtained by diving the total salt in the ocean by the rate of salt added each year. Beginning with essentially non-saline oceans, it would have taken about 90 million years of the oceans to reach their present salinity, according to Joly. The figure, however, was off the currently accepted mark of 4.54 billion by a factor of 50, largely because there was no way to account accurately by recycled salt and salt incorporated into clay mineral deposited on the sea floors. Even though in error, Joly's calculations clearly supported those geologists who insisted on an age for Earth far in excess of a few million years. The belief in Earth's immense antiquity was also supported by Darwin, Huxley, and other evolutionary biologists, who saw the need for time in the hundreds of millions of years to accomplish the organic evolution apparent in the fossil record.