Small size makes it easy to scramble among twigs and branches in the canopyfor insects,flowers, or fruit, but small mammals are surpassed, in thecompetition for food, by large ones that have their own tactics for browsingamong food-rich twigs. The weight of a gibbon (a small ape) hanging below abranch arches the terminal leaves down so that fruit-bearing foliage dropstoward the gibbon's face. Walking or leaping species of a similar or even largersize access the outer twigs either by snapping off and retrieving the wholebranch or by clutching stiff branches with the feet or tail and plucking foodwith their hands.
Small climbing animals may reach twigs readily, but it is harder for themthan for large climbing animals to cross the wide gaps from on tree crown to thenext that typify the high canopy. A macaque or gibbon can hurl itself fartherthan a mouse can: it can achieve a running start, and it can more effectivelyuse a branch as a springboard, even bouncing on a climb several times beforejumping. The forward movement of a small animal is seriously reduced by the airfriction against the relatively large surface area of its body. Finally, for themany small mammals that supplement their insect diet with fruits or seeds, aninability to span open gaps between tree crowns may be problematic, since treesthat yield these foods can be sparse.
1. The passage answers which of the following questions?
【TOEFL阅读理解|托福阅读真题整合】(A) How is the rain forest different from other habitats?
(B) How does an animal's body size influence an animal's need for food?
(C) Why does the rain forest provide an unusual variety of food foranimals?
(D) Why do large animals tend to dominate the upper canopy of the rainforest?
2. Which of the following animals is less common in the upper canopy thanin other environments?
(A) Monkeys
(B) Cats
(C) Porcupines
(D) Mice
3. The word they in line 4 refers to
(A) trees
(B) climbing mammals of moderately large size
(C) smaller species
(D) high tropical canopies
4. According to paragraph 2, which of the following is true about the smallmammals in the rain
forest?
(A) They have body shapes that are adapted to live in the canopy.
(B) They prefer the temperature and climate of the canopy to that of otherenvironments.
(C) They have difficulty with the changing conditions in the canopy.
(D) They use the trees of the canopy for shelter from heat and cold.
5. In discussing animal size in paragraph 3, the author indicates that
(A) small animals require proportionately more food than larger animalsdo
(B) a large animal's size is an advantage in obtaining food in thecanopy
(C) small animals are often attacked by large animals in the rainforest
(D) small animals and large animals are equally adept at obtaining food inthe canopy
6. The word typify in line 19 is closest in meaning to
(A) resemble
(B) protect
(C) characterize
(D) divide
7. According to paragraph 4, what makes jumping from one tree crown toanother difficult for
small mammals?
(A) Air friction against the body surface
(B) The thickness of the branches
(C) The dense leaves of the tree crown
(D) The inability to use the front feet as hands
8. The word supplement in line 24 is closest in meaning to
(A) control
(B) replace
(C) look for
(D) add to
9. Which of the following terms is defined in the passage ?
(A) canopy (line 1)
(B) warm blooded (line 5)
(C) terminal leaves (line 13)
(D) springboard (line 21)
托福阅读真题3
PASSAGE 9
Prehistoric mammoths have been preserved in the famous tar pits of RanchoLa Brea (Brea is the Spanish word for tar) in what is now the heart of LosAngeles, California. These tar pits have been known for centuries and wereformerly mined for their natural asphalt, a black or brown petroleum-likesubstance. Thousands of tons were extracted before 1875, when it was firstnoticed that the tar contained fossil remains. Major excavations were undertakenthat established the significance of this remarkable site. The tar pits werefound to contain the remains of scores of species of animals from the last30,000 years of the Ice Age.
Since then, over 100 tons of fossils, 1.5 million from vertebrates, 2.5million from invertebrates, have been recovered, often in densely concentratedand tangled masses. The creatures found range from insects and birds to giantground sloth's, but a total of 17 proboscides (animals with a proboscis or longnose) — including mastodons and Columbian mammoths — have been recovered, mostof them from Pit 9, the deepest bone-bearing deposit, which was excavated in1914. Most of the fossils date to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The asphalt at La Brea seeps to the surface, especially in the summer, andforms shallow puddles that would often have been concealed by leaves and dust.Unwary animals would become trapped on these thin sheets of liquid asphalt,which are extremely sticky in warm weather. Stuck, the unfortunate beasts woulddie of exhaustion and hunger or fall prey to predators that often also becamestuck.

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标题：TOEFL阅读理解|托福阅读真题整合( 二 )