托福阅读真题词汇题：

　　merely = only exclusively = solely

　　maintain = claim supplement = add to

　　dramatic = powerful autonomous = independent

　　rudimentary = elementary fluctuation = variation

　　akin to = similar to ingenuity = inventiveness

　　occasionally = sometimes

　　托福阅读真题第一篇

　　题材划分：人文历史类

　　主要内容：

　　最早的壁画是在某个地方发现的，但是由于湿气严重，为了保护当地壁画，所以基本不让人进入参观。即使是学家们也很难进入进行研究考察。根据一些信息专家们还是可以了解和推测出一些跟壁画相关的历史文化知识。壁画上画的内容主要是动物，但是基本上很难找到画人的壁画。那时的当地人们从自然中获得了一些基本颜色，有红、黑、黄、褐等，他们还会将颜色混合，利用不同的工具进行壁画创作。

　　相关背景资料：

　　Cave paintings (also known as "parietal art") are painted drawings on cave walls or ceilings, mainly of prehistoric origin, to some 40,000 years ago (around 38,000 BCE) in both Asia and Europe. The exact purpose of the Paleolithic cave paintings is not known. Evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. They are also often located in areas of caves that are not easily accessible. Some theories hold that cave paintings may have been a way of communicating with others, while other theories ascribe a religious or ceremonial purpose to them. The paintings are remarkably similar around the world, with animals being common subjects that give the most impressive images. Humans mainly appear as images of hands, mostly hand stencils made by blowing pigment on a hand held to the wall.

　　The earliest known cave paintings/drawings of animals are at least 35,000 years old and are found in Pettakere cave on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, according to datings announced in 2014. Previously it was believed that the earliest paintings were in Europe. The earliest figurative paintings in Europe date back to the Aurignacian period, approximately 30,000 to 32,000 years ago, and are found in the Chauvet Cave in France, and in the Coliboaia Cave in Romania. The earliest non-figurative rock art dates back to approximately 40,000 years ago, the date given both to a disk in the El Castillo cave in Cantabria, Spain and a hand stencil in Sulawesi. There are similar later paintings in Africa, Australia and South America, continuing until recent times in some places, though there is a worldwide tendency for open air rock art to succeed paintings deep in caves.

　　托福阅读真题第二篇

　　题材划分：历史类

　　主要内容：

　　讲述Towns VS. Villages. 第一段说在欧洲的某个历史时期，Lord控制着土地和经济，但是这个时候Towns确实是存在的，它和Villages的区别不在于居民人数的多少，而在于其它方面。第二段提到了towns的几个特征：1.人口密度大，labor diversity, periodic market based on many instead of barter, 贸易收入在总收入中占有一定比例 2.Village可能并没有上述讲到的特征，但是towns都有，这并不能作为区分towns和village的依据 3.有些建筑物存在于towns或者village中。第三段中讲到一些学者补充了两者的不同点。第四段里说到了towns的发展扩大，分为北欧和南欧，北欧就是很正常的数量变多城市扩大，但是在南欧，Towns的数量并没有增加，总体上人数的增加来源于移民。第五段说towns的经济发展，lord控制了一个地区但不住在那个区域，这就造成了一个现象，北欧有三足鼎立相互制约的感觉，lord其实并没有实际话语权，但是在南欧，同样有相互制约的权利，但是lord是有话语权的，权利同时也在慢慢向其它组织转移。

　　相关背景资料：

　　In some cases, "town" is an alternate name for "city" or "village" (especially a larger village). Sometimes, the word "town" is short for "township". In general, today towns can be differentiated from townships, villages, or hamlets on the basis of their economic character, in that most of a town's population will tend to derive their living from manufacturing industry, commerce, and public services rather than primary industry such as agriculture or related activities.

　　A place's population size is not a reliable determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, a large village might contain several times as many people as a small town. In the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns.

　　The modern phenomenon of extensive suburban growth, satellite urban development, and migration of city-dwellers to villages have further complicated the definition of towns, creating communities urban in their economic and cultural characteristics but lacking other characteristics of urban localities.

　　Some forms of non-rural settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural, but have at best a questionable claim to be called a town.

　　托福阅读真题第三篇

　　题材划分：艺术类

　　主要内容：

　　某个人对另外一个人写的关于博物馆光限制的看法。一个人在他的说中说博物馆的东西都应该被保存在低光环境下，现在的博物馆光线太强对文物不好。比如有种墨水就会因为外界光线条件分解受损。他还建议说博物馆要有一种chambers来让参观者过渡适应博物馆内部的低光线环境。本文作者认为这样做不好，他说这种所谓专家的理论并没有得到研究证实，人们应该仔细研究每个博物馆区域需要具体的多少光强并进行针对性的布置而不是全部都是暗的，特别是艺术博物馆，canvas和pigment并不需要低光保护，低光反而会让人产生视觉偏差，对观赏效果不好。分别举了伦敦和丹麦的例子。伦敦的例子是说低光环境带来的坏处，丹麦的例子是说用白色墙壁吸收了有害紫外线的同时也保证了亮度，很棒。最后作者倡导人们在保护博物馆环境的同时也要保证人们的欣赏效果。

　　相关背景资料：

　　The design of museums has evolved throughout history. However, museum planning involves planning the actual mission of the museum along with planning the space that the collection of the museum will be housed in.

　　"The new museum…does not build on an educational superstition. It examines its community's life first, and then straightway bends its energies to supplying some the material which that community needs, and to making that material's presence widely known, and to presenting it in such a way as to secure it for the maximum of use and the maximum efficiency of that use."

　　The way that museums are planned and designed vary according to what collections they house, but overall, they adhere to planning a space that is easily accessed by the public and easily displays the chosen artifacts. These elements of planning have their roots with John Cotton Dana, who was perturbed at the historical placement of museums outside of cities, and in areas that were not easily accessed by the public, in gloomy European style buildings.

　　Questions of accessibility continue to the present day. Many museums strive to make their buildings, programming, ideas, and collections more publicly accessible than in the past. Not every museum is participating in this trend, but that seems to be the trajectory of museums in the twenty-first century with its emphasis on inclusiveness. One pioneering way museums are attempting to make their collections more accessible is with open storage. Most of a museum's collection is typically locked away in a secure location to be preserved, but the result is most people never get to see the vast majority of collections. The Brooklyn Museum's Luce Center for American Art practices this open storage where the public can view items not on display, albeit with minimal interpretation. The practice of open storage is all part of an ongoing debate in the museum field of the role objects play and how accessible they should be.