2013年7月20日托福阅读真题解析.docVIP

2013年7月20日托福阅读真题解析 第一篇 TOPIC 地质对美国经济影响 讲美国的各种地质特点促进农业发展，进而促进经济发展，包括：风的作用形成平原，使金属矿物得以挖掘，冰川回退留下肥沃土地等等，最终对全世界各地的农业及经济发展产生良好影响。 解析：本文属于地质学和农业话题组合，但都是托福阅读常考话题。在TPO中只有分别考察农业、地质学等内容的文章，并不话题交叉，可分别复习。 Great Plains The northern and southern Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies. Some geographers include some territory of Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at the Rio Grande. The region is known for supporting extensive ranching and agriculture Geology The Great Plains are the westernmost portion of the vast North American Interior Plains, which extend east to the Appalachian Plateau. The United States Geological Survey divides the Great Plains in the United States into ten physiographic subdivisions: During the Cretaceous Period (145-65 million years ago), the Great Plains was covered by a shallow inland sea called the Western Interior Seaway. However, during the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene (65-55 million years ago), the seaway had begun to recede, leaving behind thick marine deposits and a relatively flat terrain where the seaway had once occupied. Paleontological finds in the area have yielded bones of woolly mammoths, saber toothed tigers and other ancient animals, as well as dozens of other megafauna (large animals over 100 lb (45 kg)) – such as giant sloths, horses, mastodons, and American lion – that dominated the area of the ancient Great Plains for millions of years. The vast majority of these animals went extinct in North America around 13,000 years ago during the end of the Pleistocene. 第二篇 TOPIC动物的迁徙 主要讲动物如何迁徙，原因不同。先举了蝴蝶与鲸