托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Bison and Humans

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Bison and Humans

1. When human beings first migrated from Asia into North America at the end of the last ice age, they found an enormous, now extinct creature known as the giant long-horned bison (Bison priscus). We know that early Americans hunted these beasts because excavated skeletons of the bison bear stone spear tips. The style of the points dates them to twelve to thirteen thousand years ago, not long after the first wave of human immigrants washed south and east across the continent. These early Americans ate a variety of plants and animals, but judging from the campsite remains, they had a special taste for long-horned bison. It was their favorite prey, perhaps because one animal filled so many stomachs.

2. The giant horns that gave Bison priscus its common name tell us some important things about its lifestyle. Animals with gigantic weapons on their heads usually live alone or in small groups. Animals that live in herds usually have small horns. Horns and antlers help males in several ways. Animals use these horns and antlers to fight with other members of the same species, to increase their appeal to potential mates, and to protect themselves from predators. Fossil bones suggest that giant bison used their long, outward-facing horns to injure their opponents. An individual with longer horns had a better chance of circumventing its opponents' horns and fatally wounding them than one with shorter horns, and females probably preferred to mate with winners of these contests rather than with losers, either because they liked what they saw in the male or because they liked the territory that the male could defend from competitors.

3. The giant bison's architecture served it well for thousands of years, but its body shrank and changed shape starting about twelve thousand years ago. The timing gives us an important clue about the cause. Only two major predators, wolves and lions, had hunted giant bison for tens of thousands of years. If they caused the change, it would have happened much earlier. The big change in the bison's environment twelve to thirteen thousand years ago was the arrival of a new predator. This one walked on two feet, hunted in cooperative bands, and carried spears with well-designed stone points. Its remarkable efficiency at hunting seems to have caused a reduction in the body size of other large mammals, too. Over the past ten thousand years, North American sheep, elk, moose, musk ox, bears, antelope, and wolves have all shrunk.

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托福阅读真题题目：

1..According to paragraph 1, which of the following best describes the relationship between humans twelve to thirteen thousand years ago and the giant long-horned bison

A. Humans first came to the Americas as a result of following long horned bison that were migrating from Asia to the Americas.

B. Humans in the Americas preferred hunting long-horned bison to hunting other animals.

C. Humans in the Americas were forced to migrate south and east across the continent as a result of the presence of long-horned bison.

D. Humans in the Americas generally ate plants and small animals because long-horned bison were difficult to hunt.

2..The word gigantic in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. very big

B. very dangerous

C. powerful

D. sharp

3..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. Females may have chosen their mates based on the male's ability to win contests with other males, or perhaps they decided based on territory.

B. The longer-horned opponent was more likely to win in a fight, which probably made him more attractive to females because of his physical characteristics or his ability to protect territory.

C. Males engaged in contests in which they tried to wound one another with their horns while avoiding being hit by the horns of their opponent.

D. An individual that was able to avoid its opponents' horns had a better chance of fatally wounding them and winning the contest for territory or females.

4..According to paragraph 2, the fact that Bison priscus had giant horns suggests which of the following about its lifestyle

A. The bison were probably more concerned with protecting themselves from predators than with fighting each other.

B. The horns were probably more for display to attract mates than for use as actual weapons.

C. Those individuals with smaller horns probably banded together to fight the males with larger horns.

D. Individuals probably lived by themselves or with only a few other bison.

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