2016年10月28日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Features of Tropical Mammals

2016年10月28日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Features of Tropical Mammals

1. There are several important features of tropical mammals and their habitats that differentiate them from temperate-zone mammals. First, tropical mammals face different environmental stresses than do temperate-zone mammals, and they respond to stresses in different ways. Many temperate-zone mammals, of course, must endure extreme variation within a year; from cold winters with snow and low food supplies to hot summers with dry weather and abundant food. Many mammals respond with hibernation, staying more or less dormant for several months until conditions improve. Tropical mammals, except in the high-altitude mountains, do not encounter such extreme annual changes, but they do face dry seasons, up to five months long, that sometimes severely reduce food supplies. For some surprising reasons, they cannot alleviate this stress by hibernating, waiting for the rainy season to arrive with its increased food supplies. When a mammal in Canada or Alaska hibernates, many of its predators leave the area. This is not the case in the tropics. A mammal sleeping away the dry season in a burrow would be easy prey to snakes and other predators. Moreover, a big danger to sleeping mammals would be army ants. These voracious insects are very common in the tropics and would quickly eat a sleeping mouse or squirrel. Also, external parasites, such as ticks and mites, which are inactive in extreme cold, would continue to be very active on sleeping tropical mammals, sucking blood and doing considerable damage. Last, the great energy reserves needed to be able to sleep for an extended period through warm weather may be more than any mammal can physically accumulate. Therefore, tropical mammals need to stay active throughout the year. One way they counter the dry season's reduction in their normal foods is to switch food types seasonally. For instance, some rodents that eat mostly insects during the rainy season switch to seeds during the dry season; some bats that feed on insects switch to dry-season fruits.

2. The abundance of tropical fruit brings up another interesting difference between temperate and tropical mammals: a surprising number of tropical mammals eat a lot of fruit, even among the carnivore group, which, as its name implies, should be eating meat. All the carnivores in Brazil, save pumas, jaguars, and otters, are known to eat fruit on occasion. Upon reflection, however, it makes sense that these mammals consume fruit. Fruit is very abundant in the tropics, available throughout much of the year, and, at least when it is ripe, easily digested by mammalian digestive systems. A consequence of such frugivory (fruit eating) is that many mammals have become, together with frugivorous birds, major dispersal agents of fruit seeds, which they spit out or which travel unharmed through their digestive tracts to be deposited in feces far from the mother tree. Some biologists believe that, even though the carnivores plainly are specialized for hunting down, killing, and eating animal prey, it is likely that fruit has always been a part of their diet.

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托福阅读真题题目：

1..The word extreme in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. great

B. repeated

C. unusual

D. constant

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.

A. Most tropical mammals do not experience extreme temperature changes but can suffer severe food losses from long dry seasons.

B. Tropical mammals in high-altitude mountains encounter more severe food shortages than other tropical mammals.

C. Dry seasons up to five months long cause as much damage to food resources of tropical mammals as extreme annual changes.

D. Dry seasons do not severely reduce the food supplies of tropical mammals every year but they do occur sometimes.

3..According to paragraph 1, mammals in the tropics encounter extreme temperature variations in which of the following situations

A. During hot summers

B. During the dry season

C. In high-altitude mountains

D. During the rainy season

4..According to paragraph 1, a tropical mammal hibernating throughout the dry season would encounter all of the following difficulties EXCEPT:

A. It would be easy prey for predators such as snakes.

B. It would not be able to maintain a steady body temperature.

C. It might be attacked by army ants.

D. It could not accumulate sufficient energy reserves.

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