2017年9月17日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Farming New England in Colonial Times

2017年9月17日托福阅读真题+题目+答案：Farming New England in Colonial Times

When in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries European settlers arrived in New England, the northeastern part of the United States, forest was the dominant form of vegetative cover, making agriculture difficult. Initially, the Europeans went in search of areas already cleared by Native Americans (the original inhabitants of the continent) that would be suitable for planting crops, to thereby save themselves from the backbreaking labor involved in clearing forestland.

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

B.fortunately

C.consequently

D.eventually

2.According to paragraph 1, European settlers were interested in areas that had already been cleared by Native Americans because

A.they believed that the most fertile soil was to be found in those areas

B.they wanted to locate their field where they would do as little damage to the forest as possible

C.cleaning forestland to create fields was extremely hard work

D.It took some time before a newly cleared area became suitable for planting crops

Eventually, however, population growth outstripped the supply of cleared land, forcing the European settlers to cut down more forest themselves. For most of the settlers, cleared, arable land was the landscape most familiar to them from life back across the ocean. It took time to become accustomed to the hard labor involved in cutting down the woods. In the northern colonies, trees were usually chopped down, although occasionally a technique known as girdling was used. Girdling, a practice far more common in the South, involved cutting a horizontal channel all the way around the tree, which stopped the flow of sap, the liquid that carries food to all parts of a plant. Deprived of sap, the leaves would die and the branches eventually fell off, leaving the surrounding land dry and suitable for planting.

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

A.available

B.appropriate

C.ready

D.cleared

4.According to paragraph 2, European settlers finally started to cut down forest themselves because

A.they had discovered effective new techniques for cutting down trees

B.they wanted to create landscapes that were more like those of Europe

C.they needed to replenish their supply of wood

D.they had used up the available cleared land

5.According to paragraph 2, girdling worked by

A.splitting the tree in half vertically

B.removing all the branches from a tree

C.keeping sap from reaching the tree’s leaves and branches

D.preventing the tree from absorbing water from the ground

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