真题精选及详解[听力音频]

新托福考试真题精选及详解（一）

Reading Section

Directions

The Reading section tests your ability to understand reading passages like those in college textbooks. The passages are about 700 words in length.

This is the short format for the Reading section. On the short format, you will read three passages. After each passage, you will answer 12-14 questions about it. You may take notes while you read, but notes are not graded. You may use your notes to answer the questions. Some passages may include a word or phrase that is underlined in blue. Click on the word or phrase to see a glossary definition or explanation.

Choose the best answer for multiple-choice questions. Follow the directions on the page or on the screen for computer-assisted questions. Most questions are worth 1 point, but the last question in each passage is worth more than 1 point.

The Reading section is divided into parts. Click on Next to go to the next question. Click on Back to return to previous questions. You may return to previous questions for all of the passages in the same part, but after you go to the next part, you will not be able to return to passages in the previous part. Be sure that you have answered all of the questions for the passages in each part before you click on Next at the end of the passage to move to the next part.

You can click on Review to see a chart of the questions you have answered and the questions you have not answered in each part. From this screen, you can return to the question you want to answer in the part that is open.

You will have 20 minutes to read each passage and answer the questions for that passage. You will have 60 minutes to complete all of the passages and answer all of the questions on the short format. A clock on the screen will show you how much time you have to complete the Reading section.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF REFRIGERATION

[1] Cold storage, or refrigeration, is keeping food at temperatures between 32 and 45 degrees F in order to delay the growth of microorganisms—bacteria, molds, and yeast— that cause food to spoil. Refrigeration produces few changes in food, so meats, fish, eggs, milk, fruits, and vegetables keep their original flavor, color, and nutrition. Before artificial refrigeration was invented, people stored perishable food with ice or snow to lengthen its storage time. Preserving food by keeping it in an ice-filled pit is a 4,000-year-old art. Cold storage areas were built in basements, cellars, or caves, lined with wood or straw, and packed with ice. The ice was transported from mountains, or harvested from local lakes or rivers, and delivered in large blocks to homes and businesses.

[2] Artificial refrigeration is the process of removing heat from a substance, container, or, enclosed area, to lower its temperature. The heat is moved from the inside of the container to the outside. A refrigerator uses the evaporation of a volatile liquid, or refrigerant, to absorb heat. In most types of refrigerators, the refrigerant is compressed, pumped through a pipe, and allowed to vaporize. As the liquid turns to vapor, it loses heat and gets colder because the molecules of vapor use energy to leave the liquid. The molecules left behind have less energy and so the liquid becomes colder. Thus, the air inside the refrigerator is chilled.

[3] Scientists and inventors from around the world developed artificial refrigeration during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. William Cullen demonstrated artificial refrigeration in Scotland in 1748, when he let ethyl ether boil into a partial vacuum. In 1805, American inventor Oliver Evans designed the first refrigeration machine that used vapor instead of liquid. In 1842, physician John Gorrie used Evans’s design to create an air-cooling apparatus to treat yellow-fever patients in a Florida hospital. Gorrie later left his medical practice and experimented with ice making, and in 1851 he was granted the first U.S. patent for mechanical refrigeration. In the same year, an Australian printer, James Harrison, built an ether refrigerator after noticing that when he cleaned his type with ether it became very cold as the ether evaporated. Five years later, Harrison introduced vapor-compression refrigeration to the brewing and meatpacking industries.

[4] Brewing was the first industry in the United States to use mechanical refrigeration extensively, and in the 1870s, commercial refrigeration was primarily directed at breweries. German-born Adolphus Busch was the first to use artificial refrigeration at his brewery in St. Louis. Before refrigeration, brewers stored their beer in caves, and production was constrained by the amount of available cave space. Brewing was strictly a local business, since beer was highly perishable and shipping it any distance would result in spoilage. Busch solved the storage problem with the commercial vapor-compression refrigerator. He solved the shipping problem with the newly invented refrigerated railcar, which was insulated with ice bunkers in each end. Air came in on the top, passed through the bunkers, and circulated through the car by gravity. In solving Busch’s spoilage and storage problems, refrigeration also revolutionized an entire industry. By 1891, nearly every brewery was equipped with mechanical refrigerating machines.

[5] The refrigerators of today rely on the same basic principle of cooling caused by the rapid evaporation and expansion of gases. Until 1929, refrigerators used toxic gases— ammonia, methyl chloride, and sulfur dioxide—as refrigerants. After those gases accidentally killed several people, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) became the standard refrigerant. However, they were found to be harmful to the earth’s ozone layer, so refrigerators now use a refrigerant called HFC 134a, which is less harmful to the ozone.

1. What is the main reason that people developed methods of refrigeration? 

(A) They wanted to improve the flavor and nutritional value of food.

(B) They needed to slow the natural processes that cause food to spoil.

(C) They needed a use for the ice that formed on lakes and rivers.

(D) They wanted to expand the production of certain industries.

2. The word perishable in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to

(A) capable of spoiling

(B) uncooked

(C) of animal origin

(D) highly nutritious

3. What can be inferred from paragraph 1 about cold storage before the invention of artificial refrigeration?

(A) It kept food cold for only about a week.

(B) It was dependent on a source of ice or snow.

(C) It required a container made of metal or wood.

(D) It was not a safe method of preserving meat.

4. Artificial refrigeration involves all of the following processes EXCEPT

(A) the pumping of water vapor through a pipe

(B) the rapid expansion of certain gases

(C) the evaporation of a volatile liquid

(D) the transfer of heat from one place to another

5. Which sentence below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in paragraph 2? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

(A) It takes a lot of energy to transform a liquid into a vapor, especially when the vapor loses heat.

(B) Some gases expand rapidly and give off energy when they encounter a very cold liquid.

(C) When kinetic energy is changed to heat energy, liquid molecules turn into vapor molecules.

(D) During evaporation, the vapor molecules use energy, and the liquid becomes colder.

6. According to the passage, who was the first person to use artificial refrigeration for a practical purpose?

(A) William Cullen

(B) Oliver Evans

(C) John Gorrie

(D) Adolphus Busch

7. The word it in paragraph 3 refers to

(A) printer

(B) refrigerator