第一篇

　　是讲美国的杂志报业的发展及影响

　　第一题有考带来哪些好处。然后描述了和欧洲的不同(这里也有题问美国报业与欧洲有什么不同)美国太大，不像欧洲有国家范围的报纸，美国有些小地方有当地的报纸，但是规模很小，内容大部分都是引用其他主流媒体的信息，自己的新闻很少，但是符合当地人的需求。然后引用了一些美国南北战争的前后对比和描述。单词题考了ambiguous其他的忘了。

　　解析：本文描述了美国报业的发展。根据考生回忆可知大致应包含报业的发展过程及特点，以及发展之后带来的影响。属于托福阅读常见的历史类文章类型。考生须注意文章谈论的几个关于报业发展几个方面特点的把握。

　　Partisan Newspapers

　　Newspapers became a form of public property after 1800. Americans believed that as republican citizens they had a right to the information contained in newspapers without paying anything. To gain access readers subverted the subscription system by refusing to pay, borrowing, or stealing. Editors, however, tolerated these tactics because they wanted longer subscription lists. First, the more people read the newspaper, more attractive it would be to advertisers, who would purchase more ads and pay higher rates. A second advantage was that greater depth of coverage translated into political influence for partisan newspapers. Newspapers also became part of the public sphere when they became freely available at reading rooms, barbershops, taverns, hotels and coffeehouses.

　　The editor, usually reflecting the sentiment of a group or a faction, began to emerge as a distinct power. He closely followed the drift of events and expressed vigorous opinions. But as yet the principal discussions were contributed not by the editors but by "the master minds of the country." The growing importance of the newspaper was shown in the discussions preceding the Federal Convention, and notably in the countrywide debate on the adoption of the Constitution, in which the newspaper largely displaced the pamphlet. When Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay united to produce the Federalist essays, they chose to publish them in The Independent Journal and The Daily Advertiser, from which they were copied by practically every paper in America long before they were made into a book.

　　When the first Congress assembled 4 March 1789, the administration felt the need of a paper, and, under the influence of Hamilton, John Fenno issued at New York, 15 April, the first number of The Gazette of the United States, the earliest of a series of administration organs. The seat of government became the journalistic center of the country, and as long as party politics remained the staple news interest the administration organs and their opponents were the chief sources of news for the papers of the country.

　　Partisan bitterness increased during the last decade of the century as the First Party System took shape. The parties needed newspapers to communicate with their voters. New England papers were generally Federalist; in Pennsylvania there was a balance; in the West and South the Republican press predominated. Though the Federalists were vigorously supported by such able papers as Russell’s Columbian Centinel in Boston, Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy, The Connecticut Courant, and, after 1793, Noah Webster’s daily Minerva (soon renamed Commercial Advertiser) in New York, the Gazette of the United States, which in 1790 followed Congress and the capital to Philadelphia, was at the center of conflict, "a paper of pure Toryism", as Thomas Jefferson said, "disseminating the doctrines of monarchy, aristocracy, and the exclusion of the people." To offset the influence of this, Jefferson and Madison induced Philip Freneau, who had been editing The Daily Advertiser in New York, to set up a "half weekly", to "gothrough the states and furnish a Whig vehicle of intelligence." Freneau’s National Gazette, which first appeared 31 October 1791, soon became the most outspoken critic of the administration of Adams, Hamilton, and Washington, and an ardent advocate of the French Revolution. Fenno and Freneau, in the Gazette of the United States and the National Gazette, at once came to grips, and the campaign of personal and party abuse in partisan news reports, in virulent editorials, in poems and skits of every kind, was echoed from one end of the country to the other.

　　The number and geographical distribution of newspapers grew apace. In 1800 there were between 150 and 200; by 1810 there were 366, and during the next two decades the increase was at least equally rapid. With astonishing promptness the press followed the sparse population as it trickled westward and down the Ohio or penetrated the more northerly forests. By 1835 papers had spread to the Mississippi River and beyond, from Texas to St. Louis, throughout Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and into Wisconsin. These pioneer papers, poorly written, poorly printed, and partisan often beyond all reason, served a greater than a merely local purpose in sending weekly to the seat of government their hundreds of messages of good and evil report, of politics and trade, of weather and crops, that helped immeasurably to bind the far-flung population into a nation. Every congressman wrote regularly to his own local paper; other correspondents were called upon for like service, and in some instances the country editors established extensive and reliable lines of intelligence; but most of them depended on the bundle of exchanges from Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, and reciprocally the city papers 62 made good use of their country exchanges.

　　Meanwhile the daily newspapers were increasing in number. The first had appeared in Philadelphia and New York in 1784 and 1785; in 1796 one appeared in Boston. By 1810 there were twenty-seven in the country—one in the city of Washington, five in Maryland, seven in New York, nine in Pennsylvania, three in South Carolina, and two in Louisiana. As early as 1835 the Detroit Free Press began its long career.

　　Nearly every county seat, and most towns of more than 500 or 1000 population sponsored one or more weekly newspapers. Politics was of major interest, with the editor-owner typically deeply involved in local party organizations. However, the paper also contained local news, and presented literary columns and book excerpts that catered to an emerging middle class literate audience. A typical rural newspaper provided its readers with a substantial source of national and international news and political commentary, typically reprinted from metropolitan newspapers. Comparison of a subscriber list for 1849 with data from the 1850 census indicates a readership dominated by property owners but reflecting a cross-section of the population, with personal accounts suggesting the newspaper also reached a wider nonsubscribing audience. In addition, the major metropolitan daily newspapers often prepared weekly editions for circulation to the countryside. Most famously the Weekly New York Tribune was jammed with political, economic and cultural news and features, and was a major resource for the Whig and Republican parties, as well as a window on the international world, and the New York and European cultural scenes.

第二篇

　　第二篇托福机经阅读是讲动物保护自己领土territory的习性，说动物生活的地区性还是什么去了。有讲到xxmale鱼在一个特定的territory里面，其他的动物过来了会攻击，male鱼在这个territory里面是为了繁殖后代。还讲到了两种鸟(sun bird 和hummingbird)，鸟在不同的territory会有不同的体重等。

　　解析：本文描述了动物保护领地的许多特点，属于托福常见的动物类文章结构。TPO类似的文章类型可以参见Animal Signals in The Rain Forest。考生须注意总结不同动物对于领地保护的不同特点。

　　Animal Territory

　　Territorial animals defend areas that contain a nest, den or mating site and sufficient food resources for themselves and their young. Defense rarely takes the form of overt fights: more usually there is a highly noticeable display, which may be visual (as in the red breast of the robin), auditory (as in much bird song, or the calls of gibbons) or olfactory, through the deposit of scent marks. Many territorial mammals use scent-marking to signal the boundaries of their territories; the marks may be deposited by urination, by defecation, or by rubbing parts of the bodies that bear specialisedscent glands against the substrate.

　　Territories may be held by an individual, a mated pair, or a group. Territoriality is not a fixed property of a species: for example, robins defend territories as pairs during the breeding season and as individuals during the winter, while some nectarivores defend territories only during the mornings (when plants are richest in nectar). In species that do not form pair bonds, male and female territories are often independent, in the sense that males defend territories only against other males, and females only against other females; in this case, if the species is polygynous, one male territory will probably contain several female territories, while in some polyandrous species such as the Northern Jacana, this situation is reversed.

　　Quite often territories that only yield a single resource are defended. For example, European Blackbirds may defend feeding territories that are distant from their nest sites, and in some species that form leks, for example the Uganda kob (a grazing antelope), males defend the lek site (which is used only for mating).

　　Ruby-throated Hummingbirds--like most hummingbird species--demonstrate strong territorial behavior; humans might even consider them to be "antisocial."

　　Adult male RTHUs arrive on their breeding grounds in spring and quickly establish non-overlapping feeding territories from which they drive away intruders, especially rival males. If a bluffing charge attack does not dispel a trespasser, the resident male may engage him in a brief but intense physical battle. These seldom cause physical damage other than the loss of a few feathers.

　　An adult male also will repeatedly drive away any female until she mates with him, after which she typically gets "free passage" into his territory. This is a great benefit to her; when she is sitting on eggs or chicks, it is important that she not be off them too long searching for food, or her offspring may die.

　　A male RTHU is effectively able to defend a territory of approximately a quarter-acre or so (1,000 square meters or 0.1 hectares). If the territory contains prime resources such as patches of nectar plants and/or a well-maintained artificial feeder, the bird will not have to leave his area on foraging trips. Females are known to defend nesting territories young males will defend food resources, so it's best not to assume that a defensive bird is always an adult male. Female RTHUs will forage up to half a mile in any direction from a nest--inscribing a circle of up to a mile in diameter--but it would be impossible for her to defend this area.

　　The territory holder usually maintains ground only by expending much time and effort in its defense. Sunbirds, for example, can expend up to 3,000 calories per hour patrolling and defending territory. Such costs can only be paid and benefits realized if there is an abundance of food to support it.

　　If food supplies are low, an animal may not gain enough energy to balance the energy used in defense. In such circumstances, it is not advantageous to be territorial. If food supplies are high, an animal can meet its daily energy needs without the added cost of being territorial. From an energy standpoint, defending even abundant resources usually isn’t worth the cost. Thus, territoriality usually only occurs at intermediate levels of food availability, where the benefits of defense offset the costs.

第三篇

　　第三篇标题是”中国的朝代发展”，中国王朝发展史，大概是从洪水、气候还有外族侵犯三个方面说明，中国需要加强中央集权centralization，里面说到了黄河，然后政府治洪水治干旱，还有讲到了长城，和长城的不足等。

　　解析：该文章属于典型的历史类文章。具体结构为：针对历史现象提出造成该现象的若干历史原因。此类型的特点的文章最后一题应该文章小节题，最后答案应为针对该历史现象原因的概括。考生阅读时注意总结。与该文章类似的TPO文章为Industrialization in The Netherlands and Scandinavia. 附次文章请从文章结构角度进行把握。

　　Industrialization in the Netherlands and Scandinavia

　　While some European countries, such as England and Germany, began to industrialize in the eighteenth century, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden developed later. All four of these countries lagged considerably behind in the early nineteenth century. However, they industrialized rapidly in the second half of the century, especially in the last two or three decades. In view of their later start and their lack of coal—undoubtedly the main reason they were not among the early industrializers—it is important to understand the sources of their success.

　　All had small populations. At the beginning of the nineteenth century，Denmark and Norway had fewer than 1 million people, while Sweden and the Netherlands had fewer than 2.5 million inhabitants. All exhibited moderate growth rates in the course of the century (Denmark the highest and Sweden the lowest), but all more than doubled in population by 1900. Density varied greatly. The Netherlands had one of the highest population densities in Europe, whereas Norway and Sweden had the lowest Denmark was in between but closer to the Netherlands.

　　Considering human capital as a characteristic of the population, however, all four countries were advantaged by the large percentages of their populations who could read and write. In both 1850 and 1914, the Scandinavian countries had the highest literacy rates in Europe, or in the world, and the Netherlands was well above the European average. This fact was of enormous value in helping the national economies find their niches in the evolving currents of the international economy.

　　Location was an important factor for all four countries. All had immediate access to the sea, and this had important implications for a significant international resource, fish, as well as for cheap transport, merchant marines, and the shipbuilding industry. Each took advantage of these opportunities in its own way. The people of the Netherlands, with a long tradition of fisheries and mercantile shipping, had difficulty in developing good harbors suitable for steamships: eventually they did so at Rotterdam and Amsterdam, with exceptional results for transit trade with Germany and central Europe and for the processing of overseas foodstuffs and raw materials (sugar, tobacco, chocolate, grain, and eventually oil). Denmark also had an admirable commercial history, particularly with respect to traffic through the Sound (the strait separating Denmark and Sweden). In 1857, in return for a payment of 63 million kronor from other commercial nations, Denmark abolished the Sound toll dues the fees it had collectedsince 1497 for the use of the Sound. This, along with other policy shifts toward free trade, resulted in a significant increase in traffic through the Sound and in the port of Copenhagen.

　　The political institutions of the four countries posed no significant barriers to industrialization or economic growth. The nineteenth century passed relatively peacefully for these countries, with progressive democratization taking place in all of them. They were reasonably well governed, without notable corruption or grandiose state projects, although in all of them the government gave some aid to railways, and in Sweden the state built the main lines. As small countries dependent on foreign markets, they followed a liberal trade policy in the main, though a protectionist movement developed in Sweden. In Denmark and Sweden agricultural reforms took place gradually from the late eighteenth century through the first half of the nineteenth, resulting in a new class of peasant landowners with a definite market orientation.

　　The key factor in the success of these countries (along with high literacy, which contributed to it) was their ability to adapt to the international division of labor determined by the early industrializers and to stake out areas of specialization in international markets for which they were especially well suited. This meant a great dependence on international commerce, which had notorious fluctuations; but it also meant high returns to those factors of production that were fortunate enough to be well placed in times of prosperity. In Sweden exports accounted for 18 percent of the national income in 1870, and in 1913, 22 percent of a much larger national income. In the early twentieth century, Denmark exported 63 percent of its agricultural production: butter, pork products, and eggs. It exported 80 percent of its butter, almost all to Great Britain, where it accounted for 40 percent of British butter imports.