2018年9月9日托福考试难度怎么样?托福阅读部分考了什么?啄木鸟教育老师为大家带来关于本次托福阅读考试的专业分析，希望对大家有帮助!

　　综合点评：

　　本次托福考试阅读部分难度和暑假基本持平。生物类仍然是大热学科，此外历史类篇章数量所占比重也很大。一些常考话题，如工业革命，罗马和希腊发展史，物种灭绝等都在本次考试中有出现，考生可以适当阅读相关英文资料做一些背景积累，熟悉这些话题的相关单词。

　　Passage one

　　学科分类：生物类

　　题目：The defense of the social fish

　　内容回忆：群居的鱼的防御方式。当Predator速度比较慢的时候，他们会和predator保持一定的距离。如果Predator向他们游过来，他们就迅速分开一个空隙，predator游走了再合拢。还有一种是他们可以互相传递predator出现的信息。

　　参考阅读：Social Group

　　In the social sciences, a social group has been defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Other theorists disagree however, and are wary of definitions which stress the importance of interdependence or objective similarity.[1][2] Instead, researchers within the social identity tradition generally define it as "a group is defined in terms of those who identify themselves as members of the group".[3] Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties. For example, a society can be viewed as a large social group.

　　The attention of those who use, participate in, or study groups has focused on functioning groups, on larger organizations, or on the decisions made in these organizations.[8] Much less attention has been paid to the more ubiquitous and universal social behaviors that do not clearly demonstrate one or more of the five necessary elements described by Sherif.

　　Some of the earliest efforts to understand these social units have been the extensive descriptions of urban street gangs in the 1920s and 1930s, continuing through the 1950s, which understood them to be largely reactions to the established authority.[9] The primary goal of gang members was to defend gang territory, and to define and maintain the dominance structure within the gang. There remains in the popular media and urban law enforcement agencies an avid interest in gangs, reflected in daily headlines which emphasize the criminal aspects of gang behavior. However, these studies and the continued interest have not improved the capacity to influence gang behavior or to reduce gang related violence.

　　The relevant literature on animal social behaviors, such as work on territory and dominance, has been available since the 1950s. Also, they have been largely neglected by policy makers, sociologists and anthropologists. Indeed, vast literature on organization, property, law enforcement, ownership, religion, warfare, values, conflict resolution, authority, rights, and families have grown and evolved without any reference to any analogous social behaviors in animals. This disconnect may be the result of the belief that social behavior in humankind is radically different from the social behavior in animals because of the human capacity for language use and rationality. Of course, while this is true, it is equally likely that the study of the social (group) behaviors of other animals might shed light on the evolutionary roots of social behavior in people.

　　Territorial and dominance behaviors in humans are so universal and commonplace that they are simply taken for granted (though sometimes admired, as in home ownership, or deplored, as in violence). But these social behaviors and interactions between human individuals play a special role in the study of groups: they are necessarily prior to the formation of groups.[citation needed] The psychological internalization of territorial and dominance experiences in conscious and unconscious memory are established through the formation of social identity, personal identity, body concept, or self concept. An adequately functioning individual identity is necessary before an individual can function in a division of labor (role), and hence, within a cohesive group. Coming to understand territorial and dominance behaviors may thus help to clarify the development, functioning, and productivity of groups.

　　Passage two

　　学科分类：农业类

　　题目：The origin of Egyptian agriculture

　　内容回忆：埃及比旁边的一个什么地方农业起源晚，原因是埃及有相对充足的资源。最初农业起源的种植的谷物和饲养的牲畜都是从旁边的地方进口的。

　　埃及农业灌溉主要靠河水，每年有一次可预测的flood可以润湿土壤，清除堆积的盐有利植物生长。居民们唯一需要担心的是高度问题。

　　参考阅读：Ancient Egyptian agriculture

　　The civilization of ancient Egypt was indebted to the Nile River and its dependable seasonal flooding. The river's predictability and the fertile soil allowed the Egyptians to build an empire on the basis of great agricultural wealth. Egyptians are credited as being one of the first groups of people to practice agriculture on a large scale. This was possible because of the ingenuity of the Egyptians as they developed basin irrigation.[1] Their farming practices allowed them to grow staple food crops, especially grains such as wheat and barley, and industrial crops, such as flax and papyrus.[2]

　　The Nile and field planting

　　The civilization of ancient Egypt developed in the arid climate of northern Africa. This region is distinguished by the Arabian and Libyan deserts,[3] and the River Nile. The Nile is one of the longest rivers in the world, flowing northward from Lake Victoria and eventually emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile has two main tributaries: the Blue Nile which originates in Ethiopia, and the White Nile that flows from Rwanda. While the White Nile is considered to be longer and easier to traverse, the Blue Nile actually carries about two thirds of the water volume of the river. The names of the tributaries derive from the color of the water that they carry. The tributaries come together in Khartoum and branches again when it reaches Egypt, forming the Nile delta.[4]

　　The Egyptians took advantage of the natural cyclical flooding pattern of the Nile. Because this flooding happened fairly predictably, the Egyptians were able to develop their agricultural practices around it. The water levels of the river would rise in August and September, leaving the floodplain and delta submerged by 1.5 meters of water at the peak of flooding. This yearly flooding of the river is known as inundation. As the floodwaters receded in October, farmers were left with well watered and fertile soil in which to plant their crops. The soil left behind by the flooding is known as silt and was brought from Ethiopian Highlands by the Nile. Planting took place in October once the flooding was over, and crops were left to grow with minimal care until they ripened between the months of March and May. While the flooding of the Nile was much more predictable and calm than other rivers, such as the Tigris and Euphrates, it was not always perfect. High floodwaters were destructive and could destroy canals that were made for irrigation. Lack of flooding created a potentially greater issue because it left Egyptians suffering from famine.[5]

　　Irrigation systems

　　To make best use of the waters of the Nile river, the Egyptians developed systems of irrigation. Irrigation allowed the Egyptians to use the Nile's waters for a variety of purposes. Notably, irrigation granted them greater control over their agricultural practices.[1] Flood waters were diverted away from certain areas, such as cities and gardens, to keep them from flooding. Irrigation was also used to provide drinking water to Egyptians. Despite the fact that irrigation was crucial to their agricultural success, there were no statewide regulations on water control. Rather, irrigation was the responsibility of local farmers. However, the earliest and most famous reference to irrigation in Egyptian archaeology has been found on the mace head of the Scorpion King, which has been roughly dated to about 3100 BC. The mace head depicts the king cutting into a ditch that is part of a grid of basin irrigation. The association of the high ranking king with irrigation highlights the importance of irrigation and agriculture to their society.[5]

　　Passage three

　　学科分类：历史类

　　题目：Industrial revolution

　　内容回忆：机器代替手工。最初是从织布开始的，用了需要水力的织布机，所以工厂需要靠水。后来更先进了有了蒸汽机就不用了。后面又讲到炼铁和一些新技术。

　　参考阅读：Industrial Revolution

　　The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, the increasing use of steam power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the factory system.

　　Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested. The textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.[1]:40

　　The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and many of the technological innovations were of British origin.[2][3] By the mid-18th century Britain was the world's leading commercial nation,[4] controlling a global trading empire with colonies in North America and Africa, and with some political influence on the Indian subcontinent, through the activities of the East India Company.[5] The development of trade and the rise of business were major causes of the Industrial Revolution.[1]:15

　　The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists say that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries.[6][7][8]

　　GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy,[9] while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies.[10] Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants.[11]

　　Although the structural change from agriculture to industry is widely associated with Industrial Revolution, in United Kingdom it was already almost complete by 1760.[12]

　　The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes.[13][14][15][16] Eric Hobsbawm held that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s,[13] while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.[14] Rapid industrialization first began in Britain, starting with mechanized spinning in the 1780s,[17] with high rates of growth in steam power and iron production occurring after 1800. Mechanized textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States in the early 19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging in Belgium and the United States and later textiles in France.[1]

　　An economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to the early 1840s when the adoption of the original innovations of the Industrial Revolution, such as mechanized spinning and weaving, slowed and their markets matured. Innovations developed late in the period, such as the increasing adoption of locomotives, steamboats and steamships, hot blast iron smelting and new technologies, such as the electrical telegraph, widely introduced in the 1840s and 1850s, were not powerful enough to drive high rates of growth. Rapid economic growth began to occur after 1870, springing from a new group of innovations in what has been called the Second Industrial Revolution. These new innovations included new steel making processes, the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the use of increasingly advanced machinery in steam-powered factories.[1][18][19][20]

　　Etymology

　　The earliest recorded use of the term "Industrial Revolution" seems to have been in a letter from 6 July 1799 written by French envoy Louis-Guillaume Otto, announcing that France had entered the race to industrialise.[21] In his 1976 book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Raymond Williams states in the entry for "Industry": "The idea of a new social order based on major industrial change was clear in Southey and Owen, between 1811 and 1818, and was implicit as early as Blake in the early 1790s and Wordsworth at the turn of the [19th] century." The term Industrial Revolution applied to technological change was becoming more common by the late 1830s, as in Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui's description in 1837 of la révolution industrielle.[22] Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 spoke of "an industrial revolution, a revolution which at the same time changed the whole of civil society". However, although Engels wrote in the 1840s, his book was not translated into English until the late 1800s, and his expression did not enter everyday language until then. Credit for popularising the term may be given to Arnold Toynbee, whose 1881 lectures gave a detailed account of the term.[23]

　　Some historians, such as John Clapham and Nicholas Crafts, have argued that the economic and social changes occurred gradually and the term revolution is a misnomer. This is still a subject of debate among some historians.

　　所考词汇：

　　customarily=commonly

　　delicate=fragile

　　apparent=obvious

　　occasionally= betweenwhiles

　　optimal= first-rank

　　Passage four

　　学科分类：生物类

　　题目：The Characters of Mite

　　内容回忆：Mite的parasitic，commensal，symbiotic(讲到有些动物有mite pocket，但无法确定是因为mite benefit还是harm)

　　参考阅读：Mite

　　Mites are small arthropods belonging to the class Arachnida and the subclass Acari (also known as Acarina). The term "mite" refers to the members of several groups in Acari but it is not a clade, and excludes the ticks, order Ixodida. Mites and ticks are characterised by the body being divided into two regions, the cephalothorax or prosoma (there is no separate head), and an opisthosoma. The scientific discipline devoted to the study of ticks and mites is called acarology.

　　Most mites are tiny, less than 1 mm (0.04 in) in length, and have a simple, unsegmented body plan. Their small size makes them easily overlooked; some species live in water, many live in soil as decomposers, others live on plants, sometimes creating galls, while others again are predators or parasites. This last group includes the commercially important Varroa parasite of honey bees, as well as the scabies mite of humans. Most species are harmless to humans but a few are associated with allergies or may transmit diseases.

　　The mites are not an exact taxon, but the name is used for members of several groups in the subclass Acari. The phylogeny of the Acari has been relatively little studied, but molecular information from ribosomal DNA is being extensively used to understand relationships between groups. The 18 S rRNA gene provides information on relationships among phyla and superphyla, while the ITS2, and the 18S ribosomal RNA and 28S ribosomal RNA genes, provide clues at deeper levels.[1]

　　Anatomy

　　External

　　Mites are tiny members of the class Arachnida; most are in the size range 0.25 to 0.75 mm (0.01 to 0.03 in) but some are larger and some are no bigger than 0.1 mm (0.004 in) as adults. The body plan is similar to that of ticks in having two regions, a cephalothorax (with no separate head) or prosoma, and an opisthosoma or abdomen. Segmentation has almost entirely been lost and the prosoma and opisthosoma are fused, only the positioning of the limbs indicating the location of the segments.[11]

　　At the front of the body is the gnathosoma or capitulum. This is not a head and does not contain the eyes or the brain, but is a retractable feeding apparatus consisting of the chelicerae, the pedipalps and the oral cavity. It is covered above by an extension of the body carapace and is connected to the body by a flexible section of cuticle. The mouthparts differ between taxa depending on diet; in some species the appendages resemble legs while in others they are modified into chelicerae-like structures. The oral cavity connects posteriorly to the mouth and pharynx.[11]

　　Most mites have four pairs of legs, each with six segments, which may be modified for swimming or other purposes. The dorsal surface of the body is clad in hardened tergites and the ventral surface by hardened sclerites; sometimes these form transverse ridges. The gonopore (genital opening) is located on the ventral surface between the fourth pair of legs. Some species have one to five median or lateral eyes but many species are blind, and slit and pit sense organs are common. Both body and limbs bear setae (bristles) which may be simple, flattened, club-shaped or sensory. Mites are usually some shade of brown, but some species are red, orange, black or green, or some combination of these colours.[11]

　　Internal

　　Mites have a typical arachnid digestive system, although some species lack an anus: they do not defecate during their short lives.[13] The circulatory system consists of a network of sinuses and lacks a heart, movement of fluid being driven by the contraction of body muscles. Gas exchange is carried out across the body surface, but many species additionally have between one and four pairs of tracheae, the spiracles being located in the front half of the body. The excretory system includes a nephridium and one or two pairs of Malpighian tubules.[11]

　　Passage five

　　学科分类：考古类

　　题目：The extinction of the mammoth

　　内容回忆：冰川时候针对猛犸象灭绝的一种climate theory(说到这个theory有些情况能解释有些就不行，比如north America的mammoth就不行)

　　参考阅读：Mammoth

　　A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus, one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors.

　　The oldest representative of Mammuthus, the South African mammoth (M. subplanifrons), appeared around 5 million years ago during the early Pliocene in what is now southern and eastern Africa. Descendant species of these mammoths moved north and continued to propagate into numerous subsequent species, eventually covering most of Eurasia before extending into the Americas at least 600,000 years ago. The last species to emerge, the woolly mammoth (M. primigenius), developed about 400,000 years ago in East Asia, with some surviving on Russia’s Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until as recently as roughly 3,700 to 4,000 years ago, still in existence during the construction of the Great Pyramid of ancient Egypt.

　　Since many remains of each species of mammoth are known from several localities, it is possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the genus through morphological studies. Mammoth species can be identified from the number of enamel ridges on their molars; the primitive species had few ridges, and the amount increased gradually as new species evolved and replaced the former ones. At the same time, the crowns of the teeth became longer, and the skulls become higher from top to bottom and shorter from the back to the front over time to accommodate this.[3]

　　Tooth of M. africanavus, one of the earliest known species of mammoth, from North Africa.

　　The first known members of the genus Mammuthus are the African species Mammuthus subplanifrons from the Pliocene and Mammuthus africanavus from the Pleistocene. The former is thought to be the ancestor of later forms. Mammoths entered Europe around 3 million years ago; the earliest known type has been named M. rumanus, which spread across Europe and China. Only its molars are known, which show it had 8–10 enamel ridges. A population evolved 12–14 ridges and split off from and replaced the earlier type, becoming M. meridionalis. In turn, this species was replaced by the steppe mammoth, M. trogontherii, with 18–20 ridges, which evolved in East Asia ca. 1 million years ago. Mammoths derived from M. trogontherii evolved molars with 26 ridges 200,000 years ago in Siberia, and became the woolly mammoth, M. primigenius.[3] The Columbian mammoth, M. columbi, evolved from a population of M. trogontherii that had entered North America. A 2011 genetic study showed that two examined specimens of the Columbian mammoth were grouped within a subclade of woolly mammoths. This suggests that the two populations interbred and produced fertile offspring. It also suggested that a North American form known as "M. jeffersonii" may be a hybrid between the two species.[4]

　　Passage six

　　学科分类：历史类

　　题目：Roman industry

　　内容回忆：Roman的industry为什么没有revolution的Roman的industry为什么没有revolution的只是expansion(提到为什么companies没有普及)

　　参考阅读：Roman Industry

　　During the Roman Republic, the Roman economy was largely agrarian, centered on the trading of commodities such as grain and wine.[2] Financial markets were established through such trade, and financial institutions which extended credit for personal use and public infrastructure, were established primarily through inter-family wealth.[3] In times of agricultural and cash shortfall, Roman officials and moneyers tended to respond by coining money; this happened during the prolonged crisis of the First Punic War, and created economic distortion and difficulties. Beginning in the early Roman Empire, the economy became monetized to a near-universal extent, in the sense of using money to express prices and debts, and a basic banking system was formed.[4] Emperors issued coinage stamped with their portraits, to disseminate propaganda, to create public goodwill, and to symbolise their wealth and power.[5] The Roman Imperial economy was often unstable, inflated in part by Emperors who issued money to fund high-profile imperial projects such as public building works, or costly wars that offered opportunities for propaganda, but little or no material gain.[4]

　　Solidus issued under Constantine II, and on the reverse Victoria, one of the last deities to appear on Roman coins, gradually transforming into an angel under Christian rule[6]

　　There was no central bank to monitor the money supply and control economic conditions, and nearly no regulation of the banking system.[7] The setup of the banking system under the Empire allowed the exchange of extremely large sums without the physical transfer of coins, which led to fiat money. With no central bank, a professional deposit banker (argentarius, coactor argentarius, or later nummularius) received and held deposits for a fixed or indefinite term, and lent money to third parties.[8] Generally, available capital exceeded the amount needed by borrowers, so loans were made and credit was extended on risky terms.[9] The senatorial elite were involved heavily in private lending, both as creditors and borrowers, making loans from their personal fortunes on the basis of social connections.[4] Banks of classical antiquity typically kept less in reserves than the full total of customers' deposits, as they had no incentive to ensure that customers' deposits would be insured in the event of a bank run.[4] It was common consensus among Romans at the time, especially due to Seneca's ideologies, that anyone involved in commerce should have access to credit.[10] This tendency toward fiat money caused the money supply to fluctuate consistently.[10]

　　Emperors of the Antonine and Severan dynasties overall debased the currency, particularly the denarius, under the pressures of meeting military payrolls.[11] Sudden inflation during the reign of Commodus damaged the credit market.[9] In the mid-200s, the supply of specie[disambiguation needed] contracted sharply.[12] Conditions during the Crisis of the Third Century—such as reductions in long-distance trade, disruption of mining operations, and the physical transfer of gold coinage outside the empire by invading enemies—greatly diminished the money supply and the banking sector by the year 300.[13] Although Roman coinage had long been fiat money or fiduciary currency, general economic anxieties came to a head under Aurelian, and bankers lost confidence in coins legitimately issued by the central government. Despite Diocletian's introduction of the gold solidus and monetary reforms, the credit market of the Empire never recovered its former robustness.[9]

　　所考词汇：

　　Attest=demonstrate

　　in essence=substantially

　　rigid= accurate

　　reluctant= unwilling

　　segregate= split

　　drastically= thoroughly

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