托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The First Settlers in Ancient Amazonia

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The First Settlers in Ancient Amazonia

Paragraph 1: Archaeologists believe that humans first arrived in North America at least 16,000 years ago and that by 11,000 years ago, these migratory hunter-gatherers (people that hunt for and collect food in the wild) had spread throughout North and South America. For some time, archaeologists believed that the region of Amazonia (the Amazon rainforest in South America) was not occupied until much later. However, it has since been proven that hunter-gatherers first entered Amazonia at least 11,200 years ago.

1. According to paragraph 1, scientists mistakenly believed that

O humans arrived in North America 16,000 years ago or earlier

O humans had spread throughout the Americas by 11,000 years ago

O the earliest humans in South America were hunter-gatherers

O humans first began to live in Amazonia sometime after 11,000 years ago

Paragraph 2: Currently, some controversy surrounds the dates when hunter-gatherers in Amazonia became sedentary (settled in one location). In many parts of the world, from Japan to Peru, the first societies to enjoy a sedentary or semisedentary way of life relied on aquatic (water-based) resources. It was not different in Amazonia, a region known for its bountiful rivers and a 932-mile-long stretch of shoreline cut by bays, deltas, and straits, where we find one of the most extensive mangrove areas on the planet. This Atlantic landscape — which begins at the mouth of the Oyapok River and the Sao Marcos Bay, marking the eastern limits of the Amazon rainforest — was settled by humans at least 5,500 years ago, thanks to the rich biodiversity (wide variety of plant and animal species) available in the region year-round. There, native communities would find shellfish, crab, fish of various sizes, and small game, as well as forest fruits, nuts, and seeds in exceptional abundance. The daily consumption of shellfish produced huge amounts of discarded shell in the habitation sites, which is why such sites are called “shell middens.” Why didn’t people find the sea earlier? Well, they may have. It is possible that many earlier sites are now underwater due to the sinking of the continental shelf (continental part closest to the ocean) during the Holocene epoch (11,700 years ago to present). A half-submerged site recently found in Salinas, a beach town, reinforces this hypothesis. Moreover, shell midden populations were also found in riverine (river) settings at Taperinha — a site located inland at a farm at the lower Amazon River — which indicates an aquatic-based sedentary way of life by 7,000 years before present, long before the spread of crop cultivation.

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

O Human settlement in this Atlantic landscape led to more biodiversity being available in the region.

O This Atlantic landscape is in a region marking the eastern limits of the Amazon rainforest.

O The rich year-round biodiversity of this Atlantic landscape allowed humans to settle there at least 5,500 years ago.

O In this Atlantic landscape there is rich biodiversity between the mouth of the Oyapok River and the Sao Marcos Bay.

3. The word “exceptional” in the passage is closest in meaning to

O unusual

O relative

O seasonal

O occasional

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