托福阅读文本：
Geographers say that what defines a place are four properties: soil, climate, altitude, and
aspect, or attitude to the Sun. Florida's ancient scrub demonstrates this principle. Its soil is pure
silica, so barren it supports only lichens as ground cover. It does, however, sustain a
sand-swimming lizard that cannot live where there is moisture or plant matter the soil. Its climate,
despite more than 50 inches of annual rainfall, is blistering desert. The only plant life it can sustain
is the xerophytic, the quintessentially dry. Its altitude is a mere couple of hundred feet, but it is
high ground on a peninsula elsewhere close to sea level, and its drainage is so critical that a
difference of inches in elevation can bring major changes in its plant communities. Its aspect is
flat direct, brutal — and subtropical.
Florida's surrounding lushness cannot impinge on its desert scrubbiness. This does not sound
like an attractive place. It does not look much like one either: shrubby little oaks, clumps of
scraggly bushes prickly pear, thorns, and tangles. "It appears," Said one early naturalist, "to desire
to display the result of the misery through which it has passed and is passing". By our narrow
standards, scrub is not beautiful; neither does it meet our selfish utilitarian needs. Even the name is
an epithet, a synonym for the stunted, the scruffy, the insignificant, what is beautiful about such a
place?
The most important remaining patches of scrub lie along the Lake Wales Ridge, a chain of
paleoislands running for a hundred miles down the center of Florida, in most places less than ten
miles wide. It is relict seashore, tossed up millions of years ago when ocean levels were higher
and the rest of the peninsula was submerged. That ancient emergence is precisely what makes
Lake Wales Ridge so precious: it has remained unsubmerged, its ecosystems essentially
undisturbed since the Miocene era. As a result, it has gathered to itself one of the largest
collections of rare organisms in the world. Only about 75 plant species survive there, but at least
30 of these are found nowhere else on Earth.
托福阅读题目：
1. What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) How geographers define a place
(B) The characteristics of Florida's ancient scrub
(C)An early naturalist's opinion of Florida
(D) The history of the Lake Wales Ridge
2. The author mentions all of the following factors that define a place EXCEPT
(A) aspect
(B) altitude
(C) soil
(D) life-forms
3. It can be inferred from the passage that soil composed of silica
(A) does not hold moisture
(B) is found only in Florida
(C) nourishes many kinds of ground cover
(D) provides food for many kinds of lizards
4. The word "sustain" in line 6 is closets in meaning to
(A) select
(B) strain
(C) support
(D) store
5. The author mentions the prickly pear (line 12) as an example of
(A) valuable fruit-bearing plants of the scrub area
(B) unattractive plant life of the scrub area
(C) a pant discovered by an early naturalist
(D) plant life that is extremely rare
6. The author suggests that human standards of beauty are
(A) tolerant
(B) idealistic
(C) defensible
(D) limited
7. The word "insignificant" in line 16 is closest in meaning to
(A) unimportant
(B) undisturbed
(C) immature
(D) inappropriate
8.According to the passage , why is the Lake Wales Ridge valuable?
(A) It was originally submerged in the ocean.
(B) It is less than ten miles wide.
(C) It is located near the seashore.
(D) It has ecosystems that have long remained unchanged
9. The word "it" in line 21 refer to
(A) Florida
(B) the peninsula
(C) the Lake Wales Ridge
(D) the Miocene era
10. The passage probably continues with a discussion of
(A) ancient scrub found in other areas of the country
(B) geographers who study Florida's scrub
(C) the climate of the Lake Wales Ridge
(D) the unique plants found on the Lake Wales Ridge
托福阅读答案：
BDACB DADCD
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