2013年8月25日托福阅读真题解析.doc

2013年8月25日托福阅读真题解析第一套题：第一篇TOPIC 某古代王国扩张及衰退古代地中海附近的一个国家，不断军事扩张，变得很繁荣。但随着版图的扩大，周围国家的威胁（如俄国），并且后面几代君主个人能力不行，这个国家渐渐衰弱。还介绍了他的政治制度，虽然君主一个人掌权，但后来产生了两种职位分权，一种是有一个人会对君主进行授权，另一种是很有权利的女人。但随着这个国家经济和社会的衰退，最后一段提到了一个解决的办法，但已无法扭转。解析：本文属历史类话题，介绍了某国家的兴亡过程。从机经回忆来看，该古代王国应指曾盛极一时的土耳其奥斯曼帝国。奥斯曼帝国在欧洲历史长河中扮演了非常重要的角色，很多重要的如新航路开辟等历史事件都和奥斯曼帝国的崛起有直接联系，所以也常常在托福的历史类文章中出现，大家应对其有一定了解。Ottoman EmpireOriginsThe Ottoman state began as one of many small Turkish states that emerged in Asia Minor during the breakdown of the empire of the Seljuk Turks. The Ottoman Turks began to absorb the other states, and during the reign (145181) of Muhammad II they ended all other local Turkish dynasties. The early phase of Ottoman expansion took place under Osman I, Orkhan, Murad I, and Beyazid I at the expense of the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, and Serbia. Bursa fell in 1326 and Adrianople (the modern Edirne) in 1361; each in turn became the capital of the empire. The great Ottoman victories of Kosovo Field (1389) and Nikopol (1396) placed large parts of the Balkan Peninsula under Ottoman rule and awakened Europe to the Ottoman danger. The Ottoman siege of Constantinople was lifted at the appearance of Timur, who defeated and captured Beyazid in 1402. The Ottomans, however, soon rallied.The Period of Great ExpansionThe empire, reunited by Muhammad I, expanded victoriously under Muhammads successors Murad II and Muhammad II. The victory (1444) at Varna over a crusading army led by Ladislaus III of Poland was followed in 1453 by the capture of Constantinople. Within a century the Ottomans had changed from a nomadic horde to the heirs of the most ancient surviving empire of Europe. Their success was due partly to the weakness and disunity of their adversaries, partly to their excellent and far superior military organization. Their army comprised numerous Christiansnot only conscripts, who were organized as the corps of Janissaries, but also volunteers. Turkish expansion reached its peak in the 16th cent. under Selim I and Sulayman I (Sulayman the Magnificent).The Hungarian defeat (1526) at Mohcs prepared the way for the capture (1541) of Buda and the absorption of the major part of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire; Transylvania became a tributary principality, as did Walachia and Moldavia. The Asian borders of the empire were pushed deep into Persia and Arabia. Selim I defeated the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, took Cairo in 1517, and assumed the succession to the caliphate. Algiers was taken in 1518, and Mediterranean commerce was threatened by corsairs, such as Barbarossa, who sailed under Turkish auspices. Most of the Venetian and other Latin possessions in Greece also fell to the sultans.During the reign of Sulayman I began (1535) the traditional friendship between France and Turkey, directed against Hapsburg Austria and Spain. Sulayman reorganized the Turkish judicial system, and his reign saw the flowering of Turkish literature, art, and architecture. In practice the prerogatives of the sultan were limited by the spirit of Muslim canonical law (sharia), and he usually shared his authority with the chief preserver ( sheyhlislam ) of the sharia and with the grand vizier (chief executive officer).In the progressive decay that followed Sulaymans death, the clergy ( ulema ) and the Janissaries gained power and exercised a profound, corrupting influence. The first serious blow by Europe to the empire was the naval defeat of Lepanto (1571; see Lepanto, battle of), inflicted on the fleet of Selim II by the Spanish and Venetians under John of Austria. However, Murad IV in the 17th cent. temporarily restored Turkish military prestige by his victory (1638) over Persia. Crete was conquered from Venice, and in 1683 a huge Turkish army under Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa surrounded Vienna. The relief of Vienna by John III of Poland and the subsequent campaigns of Charles V of Lorraine, Louis of Baden, and Eugene of Savoy ended in negotiations in 1699 (see Karlowitz, Treaty of), which cost Turkey Hungary and other territories.DeclineThe breakup of the state gained impetus with the Russo-Turkish Wars in the 18th cent. Egypt was only temporarily lost to Napoleons army, but the Greek War of Independence and its sequels, the Russo-Turkish War of 182829 (see Adrianople, Treaty of), and the war with Muhammad Ali of Egypt resulted in the loss of Greece and Egypt, the protectorate of Russia over Moldavia and Walachia, and the semi-independence of Serbia. Drastic reforms were introduced in the late 18th and early 19th cent. by Selim III and Mahmud II, but they came too late. By the 19th cent. Turkey was known as the Sick Man of Europe.Through a series of treaties of capitulation from the 16th to the 18th cent. the Ottoman Empire gradually lost its economic independence. Although Turkey was theoretically among the victors in the Crimean War, it emerged from the war economically exhausted. The Congress of Paris (1856) recognized the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire, but this event marked the confirmation of the empires dependency rather than of its rights as a European power.The rebellion (1875) of Bosnia and Herzegovina precipitated the Russo-Turkish War of 187778, in which Turkey was defeated despite its surprisingly vigorous stand. Romania (i.e., Walachia and Moldavia), Serbia, and Montenegro were declared fully independent, and Bosnia and Herzegovina passed under Austrian administration. Bulgaria, made a virtually independent principality, annexed (1885) Eastern Rumelia with impunity.Sultan Abd al-Majid, who in 1839 issued a decree containing an important body of civil reforms, was followed (1861) by Abd al-Aziz, whose reign witnessed the rise of the liberal party. Its leader, Midhat Pasha, succeeded in deposing (1876) Abd al-Aziz. Abd al-Hamid II acceded (1876) after the brief reign of Murad V. A liberal constitution was framed by Midhat, and the first Turkish parliament opened in 1877, but the sultan soon dismissed it and began a rule of personal despotism. The Armenian massacres (see Armenia) of the late 19th cent. turned world public opinion against Turkey. Abd al-Hamid was victorious in the Greco-Turkish war of 1897, but Crete, which had been the issue, was ultimately gained by Greece.CollapseIn 1908 the Young Turk movement, a reformist and strongly nationalist group, with many adherents in the army, forced the restoration of the constitution of 1876, and in 1909 the parliament deposed the sultan and put Muhammad V on the throne. In the two successive Balkan Wars (191213), Turkey lost nearly its entire territory in Europe to Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and newly independent Albania. The nationalism of the Young Turks, whose leader Enver Pasha gained virtual dictatorial power by a coup in 1913, antagonized the remaining minorities in the empire.The outbreak of World War I found Turkey lined up with the Central Powers. Although Turkish troops succeeded against the Allies in the Gallipoli campaign (1915), Arabia rose against Turkish rule, and British forces occupied (1917) Baghdad and Jerusalem. Armenians, accused of aiding the Russians, were massacred and deported from Anatolia beginning in 1915; an Armenian uprising in Van (1915) survived until relieved by Russian forces. In 1918, Turkish resistance collapsed in Asia and Europe. An armistice was concluded in October, and the Ottoman Empire came to an end. The Treaty of Svres (see Svres, Treaty of) confirmed its dissolution. With the victory of the Turkish nationalists, who had refused to accept the peace terms and overthrew the sultan in 1922, modern Turkeys history began.第二篇TOPIC 基因的意外发现科学家做实验室为某种目的，但往往会有意外地发现。全篇就将一个科学家想通过研究一个细胞，研发一个疫苗。发现有S和R两种细胞cell，做对比试验，R菌注入到老鼠体内是老鼠不死亡的，S型菌注入到老鼠是死亡的。有科学家认为是S可以转化导致R也变成S，后面有对理论的支持和反驳，发现一种cell，可以携带一些特点遗传到下一代，这种遗传物质（转化因子）就是DNA。然后有一个科学家和他的团队继续研究。但是当时的科学界还是很多人认为protein就是影响遗传的东西，因为他们认为蛋白质组成够复杂.解析：本文属生物学话题，主要涉及实验研究。大量托福文章都涉及实验研究，我们应从实验的目的、方法、结果、结论等层面分清实验步骤，重点把握实验结论。下附该实验具体内容。AveryMacLeodMcCarty experimentAvery and his colleagues showed that DNA was the key component of Griffiths experiment, in which mice are injected with dead bacteria of one strain and live bacteria of another, and develop an infection of the dead strains type.With the development of serological typing, medical researchers were able to sort bacteria into different strains, or types. When a person or test animal (e.g., a mouse) is inoculated with a particular type, an immune response ensues, generating antibodies that react specifically with antigens on the bacteria. Blood serum containing the antibodies can then be extracted and applied to cultured bacteria. The antibodies will react with other bacteria of the same type as the original inoculation. Fred Neufeld, a German bacteriologist, had discovered the pneumococcal types and serological typing; until Frederick Griffiths studies bacteriologists believed that the types were fixed and unchangeable from one generation to the next.Griffiths experiment, reported in 1928, identified that some transforming principle in pneumococcal bacteria could transform them from one type to another. Griffith, a British medical officer, had spent years applying serological typing to cases of pneumonia, a frequently fatal disease in the early 20th century. He found that multiple typessome virulent and some non-virulentwere often present over the course of a clinical case of pneumonia, and thought that one type might change into another (rather than simply multiple types being present all along). In testing that possibility, he found that transformation could occur when dead bacteria of a virulent type and live bacteria of a non-virulent type were both injected in mice: the mice would develop a fatal infection (normally only caused by live bacteria of the virulent type) and die, virulent bacteria could be isolated from such infected mice.The findings of Griffiths experiment were soon confirmed, first by Fred Neufeld at the Koch Institute and by Martin Henry Dawson at the Rockefeller Institute. A series of Rockefeller Institute researchers continued to study transformation in the years that followed. With Richard H.P. Sia, Dawson developed a method of transforming bacteria in vitro (rather than in vivo as Griffith had done). After Dawsons departure in 1930, James Alloway took up the attempt to extend Griffiths findings, resulting in the extraction of aqueous solutions of the transforming principle by 1933. Colin MacLeod worked to purify such solutions from 1934 to 1937, and the work was continued in 1940 and completed by Maclyn McCarty.Pneumococcus is characterized by smooth colonies and has a polysaccharide capsule that induces antibody formation; the different types are classified according to their immunological specificity.The purification procedure Avery undertook consisted of first killing the bacteria with heat and extracting the saline-soluble components. Next, the protein was precipitated out using chloroform and the polysaccharide capsules were hydrolyzed with an enzyme. An immunological precipitation caused by type-specific antibodies was used to verify the complete destruction of the capsules. Then, the active portion was precipitated out by alcohol fractionation, resulting in fibrous strands that could be removed with a stirring rod.Chemical analysis showed that the proportions of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and phosphorus in this active portion were consistent with the chemical composition of DNA. To show that it was DNA rather than some small amount of RNA, protein, or some other cell component that was responsible for transformation, Avery and his colleagues used a number of biochemical tests. They found that trypsin, chymotrypsin and ribonuclease (enzymes that break apart proteins or RNA) did not affect it, but an enzyme preparation of deoxyribonucleodepolymerase (a crude preparation, obtainable from a number of animal sources, that could break down DNA) destroyed the extracts transforming power.Follow-up work in response to criticism and challenges included the purification and crystallization, by Moses Kunitz in 1948, of a DNA depolymerase (deoxyribonuclease I), and precise work by Rollin Hotchkiss showing that virtually all the detected nitrogen in the purified DNA came from glycine, a breakdown product of the nucleotide base adenine, and that undetected protein contamination was at most 0.02% by Hotchkisss estimation.第三篇TOPIC 生物隔离讲物种间的isolation，通过地理隔离物种间存在差异，先讲形成这种地理隔离的原因后面讲这种隔离带来的影响。就是刚开始同一个物种，因为地理原因的相隔，时间久了就会变为两个不同的物种。例如美国的两种松鼠，被一个大峡谷分隔，生活环境不一样，吃的东西就不一样，就从一个物种变成了两个。还举个群岛的例子，上面有种鸟，后来演化成13种鸟。还提到物种的隔离还和物种的大小有关系。词汇：virtually，astonishing。解析：本文属生物学话题，涉及生物学与地理学之间的关联。文章先对biological isolation下定义，后文围绕该定义展开描述，属于典型的托福科普类描述叙述型文章。In population genetics, gene flow (also known as gene migration) is the transfer of genetic material between separate populations. Gene flow has a homogenizing effect: when there is a great deal of gene flow between populations, they tend to be similar. The opposite also tends to be true: If there is little or no gene flow between populations, the separated populations will reproduce independently, which over time can lead to genetic differences between the same species. The essential mechanism of gene flow is movement of individuals (or their gametes) between populations. For example, gene flow can occur in plant species when pollen is carried by bees or blown by the wind from one population of flowering plants to another. Mobility is one of the most significant factors affecting the rate of gene flow between different populations, as greater mobility gives genes greater migratory potential. Animals tend to be more mobile than plants, although pollen and seeds may be carried great distances by animals or wind.In most populations, not all individuals contribute equally to the next generation. For any particular gene, there may be several variations known as alleles. The genes for eye color can take on the form ofalleles for blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes, etc. Because individuals have different alleles, when only a subset of individuals reproduce, allele frequencies change from generation to generation, and some alleles may be lost. A change in allele frequency due to random chance is known as genetic drift, whereas a change due to differences in reproductive fitness is known as natural selection.Maintained gene flow between two populations can lead to a combination of the two gene pools, reducing the genetic variation between the two groups of organisms. Thus, gene flow strongly acts against speciation (the arising of new species) and natural selection by diluting the genetic differences that arise between separated groups. Migration into or out of a population may be responsible for a marked change in gene frequencies. For example, if a species of grass grows on both sides of a highway, pollen is likely to be transported from one side to the other and vice versa. If this pollen is able to fertilize the plant where it ends up and produce viable offspring, then the genes in the pollen have effectively been able to move from the population on one side of the highway to the other.Gene flow does not just occur between two populations. When a series of populations exists over a large area, gene flow may serve to keep even the most distant populations similar to one another. This can occur even if they do not exchange individuals as long as the genes from one population eventually flow into the other population through a series of. Similarly, other types of separation can also be overcome by this type of graded gene exchange. For instance, Great Danes and Chihuahuas cannot breed directly because of size incompatibility. But gene flow in both directions, through intermediate-sized dogs, keeps these two breeds from becoming separate species.Barriers to gene flow are usually, but not always, natural. They may include physical barriers like impassable mountain ranges, oceans, or vast deserts. In some cases, they can be artificial, man-made barriers, such as the Great Wall of China, which has hindered the gene flow of native plant populations. One of these native plants, Ulmus pumila, demonstrated a lower prevalence of genetic differentiation than the others whose habitat is located on the opposite side of the Great Wall of China where Ulmus pumila grows. This is because Ulmus pumila has wind-pollination as its primary means of propagation and the other plants carry out pollination through insects. Samples of the same species which grow on either side have been shown to have developed genetic differences, because there is little to no gene flow to provide recombination of the gene pools.Non-physical barriers to gene flow also exist. Female choice, an example, can also play a role in hindering gene flow. Asymmetric (uneven) recognition of local and nonlocal songs has been found between two populations of black-throated blue warblers in the United States, one in the northern United States and the other in the southern United States. Males in the northern population respond strongly to the local male songs but relatively weakly to the nonlocal songs of southern males. In contrast, southern males respond equally to both local and nonlocal songs. The fact that northern males exhibit differential recognition indicates that northern females tend not to mate with males from the south; thus it is not necessary for the northern males to respond strongly to the song from a southern challenger. A barrier to gene flow exists from South to North as a result of the female preference.It is very difficult to assess gene flow directly, so population geneticists have devised a way to estimate gene flow by comparing gene frequencies. By determining gene frequencies in two different populations, the amount of gene flow between them, usually expressed as the number of migrants exchanged per generation,