托福机经：2014年7月12托福阅读真题解析

　　机经词汇：

　　initiate v 开始、发动

　　fluctuate v 波动

　　outlying v/adj 放在…之上;边远的

　　domestic adj 国内的;驯养的

　　posterity n 子孙;后羿

　　further v 推动

　　durable adj 持久的;耐用的

　　impede v 妨碍

　　exclusive adj 专属的;排外的

　　define v 定义;规定

　　inhibit v 抑制;禁止

　　第一篇：中美洲文明的发展史(the culture of Mesoamerica)

　　版本1:关于mesoamerican的发现，出现了中美洲的各种文明(提别是maya文明)，提到了金字塔地下的发现，后来强调了旅游景点也有大量可发现的价值。

　　版本2： 美国原始历史，提到玛雅文明，埃及金字塔，然后继续主题

　　解析：

　　历史起源类主题的文章可谓是老少咸宜的文章。这一类文章通常段落结构清晰，主题明确，对背景的描述会比较详尽，不会出现因为背景知识的生疏而严重影响对于文章理解的情况。需要注意的是，必须提前对相关类型的TPO文章的生词熟悉，尽量减少生词恐惧带来的内耗。推荐TPO8的文章The Rise of Teotihucan与TPO26的Sumer and the First Cities of the Ancient Near East。

　　相关背景：

　　Mesoamerica

　　Mesoamerica is a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before theSpanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.[1][2] It is one of six areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently, and the second in the Americas after Norte Chico (Caral-Supe) in present-day northern coastalPeru.

　　As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. Beginning as early as 7000 BC, the domestication of maize, beans, squash and chili, as well as the turkey and dog, caused a transition from paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer tribal grouping to the organization of sedentary agricultural villages. In the subsequent formative period, agriculture and cultural traits such as a complex mythological and religious tradition, a vigesimalnumeric system, and a complex calendric system, a tradition of ball playing, and a distinct architectural style, were diffused through the area. Also in this period, villages began to become socially stratified and develop into chiefdoms with the development of large ceremonial centers, interconnected by a network of trade routes for the exchange of luxury goods, such as obsidian, jade,cacao, cinnabar, Spondylus shells, hematite, and ceramics. While Mesoamerican civilization did know of the wheel and basic metallurgy, neither of these technologies became culturally important.[3]

　　Among the earliest complex civilizations was the Olmec culture, which inhabited the Gulf coast of Mexico and extended inland and southwards across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Frequent contact and cultural interchange between the early Olmec and other cultures in Chiapas, Guatemala and Oaxaca laid the basis for the Mesoamerican cultural area. This formative period saw the spread of distinct religious and symbolic traditions, as well as artistic and architectural complexes. In the subsequent Preclassic period, complex urban polities began to develop among the Maya, with the rise of centers such as El Mirador, Calakmul and Tikal, and theZapotec at Monte Albán. During this period, the first true Mesoamerican writing systems were developed in the Epi-Olmec and the Zapotec cultures, and the Mesoamerican writing tradition reached its height in the Classic Maya Hieroglyphic script.

　　Mesoamerica is one of only five regions of the world where writing was independently developed. In Central Mexico, the height of the Classic period saw the ascendancy of the city of Teotihuacan, which formed a military and commercial empire whose political influence stretched south into the Maya area and northward. Upon the collapse of Teotihuacán around AD 600, competition between several important political centers in central Mexico, such as Xochicalco and Cholula, ensued. At this time during the Epi-Classic period, the Nahua peoples began moving south into Mesoamerica from the North, and became politically and culturally dominant in central Mexico, as they displaced speakers of Oto-Manguean languages. During the early post-Classic period, Central Mexico was dominated by the Toltec culture, Oaxaca by the Mixtec, and the lowland Maya area had important centers at Chichén Itzá and Mayapán. Towards the end of the post-Classic period, the Aztecs of Central Mexico built a tributary empire covering most of central Mesoamerica.[4]

　　The distinct Mesoamerican cultural tradition ended with the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Over the next centuries, Mesoamerican indigenous cultures were gradually subjected to Spanish colonial rule. Aspects of the Mesoamerican cultural heritage still survive among the indigenous peoples who inhabit Mesoamerica, many of whom continue to speak their ancestral languages, and maintain many practices harking back to their Mesoamerican roots.[5]

　　Paleo-Indian[edit]

　　The Mesoamerican Paleo-Indian period precedes the advent of agriculture and is characterized by a nomadic hunting and gathering subsistence strategy. Big-game hunting, similar to that seen in contemporaneous North America, was a large component of the subsistence strategy of the Mesoamerican Paleo-Indian. Evidence for this time period in Mesoamerica is sparse and the documented sites scattered c. 10,500 BC. These include Chivacabé, Los Tapiales, and Puerta Parada in the highlands of Guatemala, Orange Walkin Belize, and the El Gigante cave in Honduras.[citation needed] These latter sites had a number of obsidian blades and Clovis-style fluted projectile points. Fishtail points, the most common style in South America, were recovered from Puerta Parada, dated to c. 10,000 BC, as well as other sites including Los Grifos cave in Chiapas (c. 8500 BC) and Iztapan (c. 7700–7300 BC), a mammoth kill site located in the Valley of Mexico near Texcoco.[citation needed]

　　Archaic[edit]

　　The Archaic period (8000–2000 BC) is characterized by the rise of incipient agriculture in Mesoamerica. The initial phases of the Archaic involved the cultivation of wild plants, transitioning into informal domestication and culminating with sedentism and agricultural production by the close of the period. Archaic sites include Sipacate inEscuintla, Guatemala, where maize pollen samples date to c. 3500 BC.[13] The well-known Coxcatlan cave site in the Valley of Tehuacán, Puebla, which contains over 10,000teosinte cobs (an antecedent to maize), and Guilá Naquitz in Oaxaca represent some of the earliest examples of agriculture in Mesoamerica. The early development of pottery, often seen as a sign of sedentism, has been documented at a number of sites, including the West Mexican sites of Matanchén in Nayarit and Puerto Marqués inGuerrero. La Blanca, Ocós, and Ujuxte in the Pacific Lowlands of Guatemala yielded pottery dated to c. 2500 BC.[citation needed]

　　Classic[edit]

　　Early Classic[edit]

　　The Classic period is marked by the rise and dominance of several polities. The traditional distinction between the Early and Late Classic are marked by their changing fortune and their ability to maintain regional primacy. Of paramount importance are Teotihuacán in central Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala; the Early Classic’s temporal limits generally correlate to the main periods of these sites. Monte Alban in Oaxaca is another Classic-period polity that expanded and flourished during this period, but the Zapotec capital exerted less interregional influence than the other two sites.

　　During the Early Classic, Teotihuacan participated in and perhaps dominated a far-reaching macro-regional interaction network. Architectural and artifact styles (talud-tablero, tripod slab-footed ceramic vessels) epitomized at Teotihuacan were mimicked and adopted at many distant settlements. Pachuca obsidian, whose trade and distribution is argued to have been economically controlled by Teotihuacan, is found throughout Mesoamerica.

　　Tikal came to dominate much of the southern Maya lowlands politically, economically, and militarily during the Early Classic. An exchange network centered at Tikal distributed a variety of goods and commodities throughout southeast Mesoamerica, such as obsidian imported from central Mexico (e.g., Pachuca) and highland Guatemala (e.g., El Chayal, which was predominantly used by the Maya during the Early Classic), and jade from the Motagua valley in Guatemala. Carved inscriptions at the site attest to direct interaction with individuals adorned in Teotihuacan-styled dress c. AD 400.[citation needed] However, Tikal was often in conflict with other polities in the Petén Basin, as well as with others outside of it, including Uaxactun, Caracol, Dos Pilas, Naranjo, and Calakmul. Towards the end of the Early Classic, this conflict lead to Tikal’s military defeat at the hands of Caracol in 562, and a period commonly known as the Tikal Hiatus.

　　Late Classic[edit]

　　The Late Classic period (beginning ca. AD 600 until AD 909 [varies]) is characterized as a period of interregional competition and factionalization among the numerous regional polities in the Maya area. This largely resulted from the decrease in Tikal’s socio-political and economic power at the beginning of the period. It was therefore during this time that a number of other sites rose to regional prominence and were able to exert greater interregional influence, including Caracol, Copán, Palenque, and Calakmul (which was allied with Caracol and may have assisted in the defeat of Tikal), and Dos Pilas Aguateca and Cancuén in the Petexbatún region of Guatemala. Around 710, Tikal arose again and started to build strong alliances and defeat its worst enemies. In the Maya area, the Late Classic ended with the so-called "Maya collapse", a transitional period coupling the general depopulation of the southern lowlands and development and florescence of centers in the northern lowlands.

　　Some Mesoamerican cultures never achieved dominant status or left impressive archeological remains but should be mentioned as noteworthy. These include the Otomi, Mixe–Zoque groups (which may or may not have been related to the Olmecs), the northern Uto-aztecan groups, often referred to as the Chichimeca, that include the Cora andHuichol, the Chontales, the Huaves, and the Pipil, Xincan and Lencan peoples of Central America.#p#副标题#e#

　　第二篇：土壤的形成(soil formation)

　　版本一： 第二篇是土壤的形成，里面讲到了水、气候、地市对土壤的影响

　　版本二：讲土壤和水的关系。讲了水在土壤里的流动和蒸发速度，在不同地形的水的流失，具体讲了一个是悬崖边上的水为什么比陆地上的水干的要快。

　　版本三：

　　解析：本文围绕土壤如何形成这个主题展开论证。做题时需注意记录笔记，对于结构化阅读及最后一题的解答有很大好处。地理地质类主题是

　　相关背景：

　　Soil Formation

　　Climate[edit]

　　Climate regulates soil formation. Soils are more developed in areas with higher rainfall and more warmth. The rate of chemical weathering increases by 2-3 times when the temperature increases by 10 degrees Celsius. Climate also affects which organisms are present, affecting the soil chemically and physically (movement of roots).

　　Organisms[edit]

　　The organisms living in and on the soil form distinct soil types. Coniferous forests have acidic leaf litter and form what are known as inceptisols. Mixed or deciduous forests leave a larger layer of humus, changing the elements leeched and accumulated in the soil, forming alfisols. Prairies have very high humus accumulation, creating a dark, thick A horizon characteristic of mollisols.

　　For example three species of land snails in the genus Euchondrus in the Negev desert are noted for eating lichens growing under the surface limestone rocks and slabs (endolithic lichens).[3] They disrupt and eat the limestone.[3] Their grazing resulting in the weathering of the stones, and the subsequent formation of soil.[3] They have a significant effect on the region: the total population of snails is estimated to process between 0.7 and 1.1 metric ton per hectare per year of limestone in the Negev desert.[3]

　　Parent material[edit]

　　The rock from which soil is formed is called parent material. The main types are: aeolian sediments, glacial till, glacial outwash, alluvium, lacustrine sediments and residual parent material (coral or bedrock).

　　Pedologists see soil formation or soil properties as a function of regional climate, biota, topography, parent material, time and other variables.[4]

　　第三篇：文明的起源

　　版本一： 文明的起源。地方是美索不达米亚平原那边的。因为土地资源丰富，所以人口增多来开发，好像还提到了从其他地方得到青铜(bronze)，所以很珍贵。一般不用来作为务农工具。有一题就是问为什么不用青铜器装农作物的。

　　版本二： 讲文明的起源，主要以两河流域为例。，自己的语言，金属工具等等。同事说美索不达米亚和埃及因为是何故所以进口bronze，价格昂贵作为首饰和装饰品。

　　解析： 本文讲文明发展史。主要讨论的是某文明发展的原因，主旨明确，结构清晰，每段首句为topic sentence的可能性较高。大家在阅读文章之前可以先跳到最后一题(文章总结题)的位置看看那句对于文章总结的句子。对于大家从整体上把握文章的结构非常有帮助。从文章结构与内容上，都非常接近TPO8的文章The Rise of Teotihucan。

　　相关背景：

　　Sumer

　　Sumer (from Akkadian Šumeru; Sumerian ki-en-ĝir15, approximately "land of the civilized kings" or "native land"[note 1]) was an ancientcivilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern-day southern Iraq, during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. Although the earliest forms of writing in the region do not go back much further than c. 3500 BC, modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a non-Semitic people who may or may not have spoken the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc. as evidence).[1][2][3][4] These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called "proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians",[5] and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia (Assyria).[6][7][8][9] The Ubaidians were the first civilizing force in Sumer, draining the marshes for agriculture, developing trade, and establishing industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery.[5] However, some scholars such as Piotr Michalowski and Gerd Steiner, contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. It has been suggested by them and others, that the Sumerian language was originally that of the hunter and fisher peoples, who lived in the marshland and the Eastern Arabia littoral region, and were part of theArabian bifacial culture.[10] Reliable historical records begin much later; there are none in Sumer of any kind that have been dated beforeEnmebaragesi (c. 26th century BC). Professor Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians were settled along the coast of Eastern Arabia, today's Persian Gulf region, before it flooded at the end of the Ice Age.[11] Sumerian literature speaks of their homeland being Dilmun.

　　Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer asserts "No people has contributed more to the culture of mankind than the Sumerians" and yet it is only comparatively recently that we have built up a knowledge of the existence of this ancient culture.[12] Sumerian civilization took form in theUruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdat Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a close cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians (who spoke a language isolate) and the Semitic Akkadian speakers, which included widespreadbilingualism.[13] The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, tosyntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.[13] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a sprachbund.[13] Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC (short chronology), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumerian Renaissance) of the 21st to 20th centuries BC, but the Akkadian language also remained in use. The Sumerian city of Eridu, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, was the world's first city, where three separate cultures fused - that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians.[14]

　　The irrigated farming together with annual replenishment of soil fertility and the surplus of storable food in temple granaries created by this economy allowed the population of this region to rise to levels never before seen, unlike those found in earlier cultures of shifting cultivators. This much greater population density in turn created and required an extensive labour force and division of labour with many specialised arts and crafts. At the same time, historic overuse of the irrigated soils led to progressive salinisation, and a Malthusian crisis which led to depopulation of the Sumerian region over time, leading to its progressive eclipse by the Akkadians of middle Mesopotamia.

　　Sumer was also the site of early development of writing, progressing from a stage of proto-writing in the mid 4th millennium BC to writing proper in the 3rd millennium BC .