2017年5月6日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Early Ideas of Continental Drift

2017年5月6日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Early Ideas of Continental Drift

For many years, the way the outlines of the African and South American continents, situated on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, seem to fit together has attracted attention. When their shorelines are traced and placed side by side, there is quite a good fit between them – almost like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. As early as 1596, the Dutch mapmaker Abraham Ortelius suggested that the continents were once joined and subsequently separated. However, until the twentieth century and the development of the theory of plate tectonics, most earth scientists resisted or discounted the idea of continental drift.

In the early twentieth century, Frank B. Taylor and Alfred Wegener proposed some possible explanations for the way the continental outlines fit together. In 1908 and 1910, Taylor proposed that the Moon had been captured by Earth’s gravity between 60 million and 150 million years ago. He thought the Moon was initially much closer to Earth than it is today. Further, he proposed that the gravitational pull of the Moon on Earth was sufficiently strong to cause the continents to move. Sir Harold Jeffreys, an eminent astronomer and geophysicist of the time, immediately attacked Taylor’s idea, pointing out that if tidal forces were as strong as Taylor suggested, they would have stopped Earth’s rotation.

1.The word “eminent” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A.reliable

B.distinguished

C.conservative

D.Young

2.According to paragraph 2, what was Sir Harold Jeffreys’ contribution to the debate about continental drift?

A.He supported Alfred Wegener’s explanation for the way the continental outlines fit together.

B.He demonstrated that continental drift was influenced by Earth’s rotation.

C.He showed that Frank B. Taylor’s theory of the cause of continental drift was not possible.

D.He combined Frank B. Taylor’s theory and Alfred Wegener’s theory.

At about the same time, Alfred Wegener was also engaged in work on this topic. Wegener was not a geologist by training but rather a climatologist and arctic explorer. Nevertheless, the way the coastlines on either side of the Atlantic seem to fit together continually aroused his curiosity, and in 1910, he proposed the idea of continental drift. Wegener initially rejected the concept of drifting continents for lack of a conceivable mechanism to cause the drift. However, he began to read accounts of unusual similarities in plant and animal fossils between parts of South American and Africa. He did his own research on this topic and published The Origin of the Continents and Oceans in 1915. Although widely read, Wegener’s book was largely rejected by the established scientific community because the process of continental drift seemed improbably – no one could conceive of the phenomenal driving forces required to move the continents.

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