2014年12月27日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：How Plants and Animals Arrived in the Hawaiian Islands

2014年12月27日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：How Plants and Animals Arrived in the Hawaiian Islands

Scientists have attempted to explain how living things that are not native to the Hawaiian Islands were able to reach the islands from distant places. The way in which birds reached the Hawaiian Islands is obvious enough. Some of the plants that probably came with them had seeds that readily attached to feathers, about 7 percent of the Hawaiian nonendemic (nonnative) seed plants probably arrived in this way. The Hawaiian insects, too, arrived by air. Entomologists have used airplanes and ships to trail fine nets over the Pacific at different heights and have trapped a variety of insects, most of which, as would be expected, are light-bodied. These types also predominate in the Hawaiian Islands (an indication of their airborne arrival), although heavier dragonflies, sphinx moths, and butterflies are also found there.

15. The word "obvious" in the passage is closest in meaning to

A.unusual

B.natural

C.clear

D.simple

16. According to paragraph 1, how are dragonflies, sphinx moths, and butterflies different from other insects in Hawaii?

A.They are heavier.

B.They are native to Hawaii.

C.They fly at much higher levels above the land.

D.They were brought to the islands by birds.

The influence of the winds in providing colonists is shown by the fact that, although flowering plants are far more common than ferns in the world as a whole, their diversity in Hawaii is more evenly balanced: 225 immigrant flowering plants and 135 immigrant ferns. The relatively greater success of the ferns is probably due to the fact that their spores (reproductive structures) are much smaller and lighter than the seeds of flowering plants. Of the nonendemic seed plants of the Hawaiian Islands, about 7.5 percent almost certainly arrived carried by the wind, while another 30.5 percent have small seeds (up to three millimeters in diameter) and thus may also have arrived this way.

17. 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.

A.In the world as a whole, flowering plants are much more common than ferns, but in Hawaii the opposite is true.

B.A wide variety of plants, including 225 flowering plants and 135 ferns, were probably brought to Hawaii by wind.

C.Ferns are well suited to the windy conditions in Hawaii, as demonstrated by their high diversity compared to flowering plants.

D.Hawaii has a higher proportion of ferns to flowering plants than the world as a whole because many of its colonists arrived by wind.

18. According to paragraph 2, Hawaiian plants whose seeds are no more than 3 millimeters in diameter

A.are more likely to be flowering plants than ferns

B.make up about 7.5 percent of all nonendemic plants on the islands

C.make up the majority of seed-bearing plants on the islands

D.may have been transported to the islands by wind

One of the most interesting plants that probably arrived as a wind-borne seed is the tree Metrosideros. It is unusual because its seeds are relatively tiny, and this has allowed it to become widely dispersed through the Pacific islands. It is able to form forests on lowland lava with virtually no soil—a great advantage on a volcanic island. Metrosideros shows great variability in its appearance in different environments, from a large tree in the wet rain forest, to a shrub on windswept ridges, to as little as 15 centimeters high in peatlands, and it is therefore the dominant tree of the Hawaiian forest. The different forms are not distinct species, and intermediates are found where two different types are adjacent to one another.

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