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2016年9月25日托福阅读真题词汇题：
hastened=speed up integrated=combined eventually=in the later time sentimental=emotional retain=keep ease to=slow shift into alter=change inevitable=certain assimilate=absorb acknowledged=recognized dense=thick
2016年9月25日托福阅读真题第一篇：
题材划分：环境类文章
主要内容：
the prairie formation of the United States，美洲森林变草地这个地方最初是由常绿洲覆盖的，后来气候变得温暖干燥，森林北移，原先常绿洲的地方变成落叶林最后成了草地。在一些山脊之类的地方树木比较占优势。因为干燥，草地上经常会有火灾，会对树木造成较大的影响，但是对草地的影响比较小。因为火灾会烧掉树木的种子，但烧不了草。在近200年树木有变多，占据草地。因为对火灾的压制，放牧等，后面还说到fire和light有题
相似TPO练习推荐：
TPO1- Timberline Vegetation on Mountains
相关文章：
The transition from forest to treeless tundra on a mountain slope is often a dramatic one. Within a vertical distance of just a few tens of meters, trees disappear as a life-form and are replaced by low shrubs, herbs, and grasses. This rapid zone of transition is called the upper timberline or tree line. In many semiarid areas there is also a lower timberline where the forest passes into steppe or desert at its lower edge, usually because of a lack of moisture.
The upper timberline, like the snow line, is highest in the tropics and lowest in the Polar Regions. It ranges from sea level in the Polar Regions to 4,500 meters in the dry subtropics and 3,500-4,500 meters in the moist tropics. Timberline trees are normally evergreens, suggesting that these have some advantage over deciduous trees (those that lose their leaves) in the extreme environments of the upper timberline. There are some areas, however, where broadleaf deciduous trees form the timberline. Species of birch, for example, may occur at the timberline in parts of the Himalayas.
At the upper timberline the trees begin to become twisted and deformed. This is particularly true for trees in the middle and upper latitudes, which tend to attain greater heights on ridges, whereas in the tropics the trees reach their greater heights in the valleys. This is because middle- and upper- latitude timberlines are strongly influenced by the duration and depth of the snow cover. As the snow is deeper and lasts longer in the valleys, trees tend to attain greater heights on the ridges, even though they are more exposed to high-velocity winds and poor, thin soils there. In the tropics, the valleys appear to be more favorable because they are less prone to dry out, they have less frost, and they have deeper soils.
2016年9月25日托福阅读真题第二篇
题材划分：历史类文章
主要内容：
Revival of Greece，希腊文化的复兴，希腊曾有过一段没落时期，但很多人不知道。因为人口的增长，希腊耕种的作物无法供养那么多人口，所以希腊开始海上贸易。希腊最开始和一个地方起了冲突，因为原先是P在海上贸易，后来希腊战胜了P主导了爱琴海区域的贸易。希腊因为人太多后来在很多地方殖民，通常殖民者是男的，和当地人通婚之类的之后，传播了希腊文化，希腊通过贸易吸收了near east的文化，表现在货币雕刻等。但是希腊是将这些东西改造吸收。
相似TPO练习推荐：
TPO32- Siam, 1851 – 1910
相关文章：
In the late nineteenth century, political and social changes were occurring rapidly in Siam (now Thailand). The old ruling families were being displaced by an evolving centralized government. These families were pensioned off (given a sum of money to live on) or simply had their revenues taken away or restricted; their sons were enticed away to schools for district officers, later to be posted in some faraway province; and the old patron-client relations that had bound together local societies simply disintegrated. Local rulers could no longer protect their relatives and attendants in legal cases , and with the ending in 1905 of the practice of forcing peasant farmers to work part-time for local rulers, the rulers no longer had a regular base for relations with rural populations. The old local ruling families, then, were severed from their traditional social context.
The same situation viewed from the perspective of the rural population is even more complex. According to the government’s first census of the rural population, taken in 1905, there were about thirty thousand villages in Siam. This was probably a large increase over the figure even two or three decades earlier, during the late 1800s. It is difficult to imagine it now, but Siam’s Central Plain in the late 1800s was nowhere near as densely settled as it is today. There were still forests closely surrounding Bangkok into the last of the nineteenth century, and even at century’s end there were wild elephants and tigers roaming the countryside only twenty or thirty miles away.
Much population movement involved the opening up of new lands for rice cultivation. Two things made this possible and encouraged it to happen. First, the opening of the kingdom to the full force of international trade by the Boring Treaty (1855) rapidly encouraged economic specialization in the growing of rice, mainly to feed the rice-deficient portionsof Asia (India and china in particular).The average annual volume of rice exported from Siam grew from under 60 million kilograms per year in the late 1850s to more than 660 million kilograms per year at the turn of the century; and over the same period the average price per kilogram doubled. During the same period, the area planted in rice increased from about 230,000 acres to more than350, 000 acres. This growth was achieved as the result of the collective decisions of thousands of peasants families to expand the amount of land they cultivated, clear and plant new land, or adopt more intensive methods of agriculture.
2016年9月25日托福阅读真题第三篇
题材划分： 社科类文章
主要内容：
intestate highway of the United States，美国州际公路的建设，第一段说了公路的目的和三个优点：速度快、安全、便利，都用First secondly标注的。第二段说了缺点：虽然速度快，可是距离长，导致耗油量增大;而且处在非入口和出口会很不方便，应该还有缺点，之后说了对美国地形的影响:居民分布;商业模式：很多公司聚集周记公路的交汇口，小的公司搬到郊区。再然后是对一些穷地方的影响：说了亮点，反正都是负面的...其他的影响：破坏城市完整性，历史古迹;对农业，虽然增加了运输效率，但是也减少了可用土地的量，还记得有人们生活模式的变化，好像是属于地形的但好像在文末也有探讨。
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TPO25—The Decline of Venetian Shipping
相关文章：
In the late thirteenth century, northern Italian cities such as Genoa, Florence, and Venice began an economic resurgence that made them into the most important economic centers of Europe. By the seventeenth century, however, other European powers had taken over, as the Italian cities lost much of their economic might.
This decline can be seen clearly in the changes that affected Venetian shipping and trade. First, Venice’s intermediary functions in the Adriatic Sea, where it had dominated the business of shipping for other parties, were lost to direct trading. In the fifteenth century there was little problem recruiting sailors to row the galleys (large ships propelled by oars): guilds (business associations) were required to provide rowers, and through a draft system free citizens served compulsorily when called for. In the early sixteenth century the shortage of rowers was not serious because the demand for galleys was limited by a move to round ships (round-hulled ships with more cargo space), with required fewer rowers. But the shortage of crews proved to be a greater and greater problem, despite continuous appeal to Venic’s tradition of maritime greatness. Even though sailors’ wages doubled among the northern Italian cities from 1550 to 1590, this did not elicit an increased supply.
The problem in shipping extended to the Arsenale, Venice’s huge and powerful shipyard. Timber ran short, and it was necessary to procure it from farther and farther away. In ancient Roman times, the Italian peninsula had great forest of fir preferred for warships, but scarcity was apparent as early as the early fourteenth century. Arsenale officers first brought timber from the foothills of the Alps, then from north toward Trieste, and finally from across the Adriatic. Private shipbuilders were required to buy their oak abroad. As the costs of shipbuilding rose, Venice clung to its outdated standard while the Dutch were innovation in the lighter and more easily handled ships.