2016年5月托福阅读全真模拟(6)

　　2016年5月托福阅读全真模拟(6)

　　As the 11 of life continues to increase, we are fast losing the art of relaxation. Once you are in habit of rushing through life, being on the go from morning till night, it is hard to slow down. But relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body.

　　Stress is a natural part of everyday life and there is no way to avoid it. In fact, it is not the bad thing it is often 12 to be. A certain amount of stress is 13 to provide motivation and give purpose to life. It is only when the stress gets out of control that it can lead to poor 14 and ill health.

　　The amount of stress a person can 15 depends very much on the individual. Some people are not afraid of stress, and such characters are 16 prime material for managerial responsibilities. Others lose heart at the first signs of 17 difficulties. When exposed to stress, in whatever form, we react both chemically and physically. In fact we make choice between "fight" or "flight" and in more primitive days the choices made the difference between life or death. The crises we meet today are unlikely to be so 18 , but however little the stress, it involves the same response. It is when such a reaction lasts long, through continued 19 to stress, that health becomes endangered. Such serious conditions as high blood pressure and heart disease have established links with stress. Since we cannot 20 stress from our lives(it would be unwise to do so even if we could) , we need to find ways to deal with it.

　　A. cancel B. pace C. extreme D. automatically

　　E. remove F. vital G. performance H. supposed

　　I. rate J. exposure K. achievement L. unusual

　　M obviously N withstand O harsh

　　 EParagraph 1: Extinct but already fully marine cetaceans are known from the fossil record. How was the gap between a walking mammal and a swimming whale bridged? ■Missing until recently were fossils clearly intermediate, or transitional, between land mammals and cetaceans.Very exciting discoveries have finally allowed scientists to reconstruct the most likely origins of cetaceans. In 1979, a team looking for fossils in northern Pakistan found what proved to be the oldest fossil whale.

　　12. Look at the four squares that indicate where the following sentence can be added to the passage.

　　This is a question that has puzzled scientists for ages.

　　Where would the sentence best fit?

　　13-14. 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 answer choices 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.

　　This passage discusses fossils that help to explain the likely origins of cetaceans-whales, porpoises, and dolphins.

　　Answer Choices

　　1. Recent discoveries of fossils have helped to show the link between land mammals and cetaceans.

　　2. The discovery of Ambulocetus natans provided evidence for a whale that lived both on land and at sea.

　　3. The skeleton of Basilosaurus was found in what had been the Tethys Sea, an area rich in fossil evidence.

　　4. Pakicetus is the oldest fossil whale yet to be found.

　　5. Fossils thought to be transitional forms between walking mammals and swimming whales were found.

　　6. Ambulocetus' hind legs were used for propulsion in the water.

　　参考答案

　　This is a Factual Information question asking for specific information that can be found in paragraph 1. Choice 2 is the best answer. It is essentially a rephrasing of the statement in paragraph 1 that blowholes cannot disguise cetaceans’ affinities with other mammals. The other three choices are refuted, either directly or indirectly, by that paragraph.

　　This is an Inference question asking for information that can be inferred from paragraph 1 . Choice 1 is the best answer because paragraph 1 says that sea otters are unlike early mammals whose appearances are not easy to imagine. By inference, then, the early appearance of sea otters must be easy (or not difficult) to imagine.

　　This is a Vocabulary question. The word being tested is precious. It is highlighted in the passage. The correct answer is choice 3, "valuable." Anything that is precious is very important and therefore valuable.

　　This is a Factual Information question asking for specific information that can be found in the passage. Choice 3 is the best answer. Paragraph 3 describes the differences and similarities between Pakicetus and modern cetaceans. Sentence 3 of that paragraph states that their skulls are similar. The other three choices describe differences, not similarities.

　　This is a Reference question. The word being tested is It. That word is highlighted in the passage. This is a simple pronoun referent item. Choice I , "Pakicetus" is the correct answer. The word It here refers to a creature that probably bred and gave birth on land. Pakicetus is the only one of the choices to which this could apply.

　　This is a Vocabulary question. The word being tested is exposed. It is highlighted in the passage. The correct answer is choice 2, "visible." Exposed means "uncovered." A skeleton that is uncovered can be seen. Visible means "can be seen."

　　This is a Factual Information question asking for specific information that can be found in the passage. Choice 4 is the best answer because it is the only detail about the skeleton of Basilosaurus mentioned in paragraph 4, meaning that it is significant. Choice 1 is true, but it is not discussed in the detail that choice 4 is, and does not represent the significance of the discovery. Choice 3 is not mentioned, and choice 2 is not :me.

　　This is an Inference question asking for a conclusion that can be drawn from the entire passage. Choice 4 is the best answer based on the last sentence of paragraph 4, which describes Basilosaurus as a fully marine whale. That implies that everything it did, including breeding and giving birth, could have been done only in a marine environment.

　　This is an Inference question asking for a conclusion that can be drawn from the passage. Paragraph 5 explains that this discovery provided important information to scientists that they might not have been able to obtain without it. Therefore, you can infer that the discovery was a "lucky" one. The passage offers no support for the other choices. Therefore, choice 2 is the best answer.

　　This is a Sentence Simplification question. As with all of these items, a single sentence in the passage is highlighted:

　　The structure of the backbone shows, however, that Ambulocetus swam like modern whales by moving the rear portion of its body up and down, even though a fluke was missing.

　　Choice 3 is the best answer because it contains all of the essential information in the highlighted sentence. Choice 1 is not true because Ambulocetus did have a backbone. Choice 2 is not true because the sentence says that the backbone showed how the Ambulocetus swam, not that it was missing a fluke. Choice 4 is untrue because the sentence states that Ambulocetus and modern whales swam in the same way.

　　This is a Vocabulary question. The word being tested is propulsion. It is highlighted in the passage. Choice 4, "moving forward" is the best answer because it means the action of propelling. The whale in the sentence used its hind legs to push itself forward in the water.

　　This is an Insert Text question. You can see the four black squares in paragraphs 1 and 2 that represent the possible answer choices here.

　　Extinct but already fully marine cetaceans are known from the fossil record. ■How was the gap between a walking mammal and a swimming whale bridged? ■Missing until recently were fossils clearly intermediate, or transitional, between land mammals and cetaceans.

　　Very exciting discoveries have finally allowed scientists to reconstruct the most likely origins of cetaceans. ■In 1979. a team looking for fossils in northern Pakistan found what proved to be the oldest fossil whale.

　　The sentence provided is "This is a question that has puzzled scientists for ages." The best place to insert it is at square 2. The sentence that precedes square 2 is in the form of a rhetorical question and the inserted sentence explicitly provides a response to it. None of the other sentences preceding squares is a question, so the inserted sentence cannot logically follow any one of them.