11.8号托福阅读真题答案解析

11.8号托福阅读真题答案解析

本文关于20XX年11月18日阅读真题回忆，有利于考生备考。让我们回忆一下最近考试的内容：环境类，类，词汇题等，请考生们要认真的阅读哦，来学识网会给你不一样的精彩内容，学识网会在考试后第一时间更新。

11.8号托福解析

阅读部分考试回忆如下：

1. Preventing Overgrowth among Tree Branches

shedding剪枝的意义。一个是因为有些树枝消耗掉的碳物质比生产的多，另一个原因是有时候气候很干，剪枝减少水的消耗。

词汇题补充：

exposed = unprotected

with no warning = without any indication beforehand

congestion = overcrowding

2. Crown of Thorns Starfish and Coral Reefs

冠状棘海星，话题重复20XX.01.08

珊瑚的消失和一种海星的数量猛增有关系，主要说的是导致猛增的原因(环境+人)词汇题补充：

outbreak = sudden increase

accompany = occur along with

converge = come together

severity = seriousness

原题重现：

The crown of thorns starfish, Acanthaster Tlanci, is large, twenty-five to thirty-five centimeters in diameter, and has seven to twenty-one arms that are covered in spines. It feeds primarily on coral and is found from the Indian Ocean to the west coast of Central America, usually at quite low population densities. Since the mid-1950s, population outbreaks at densities

four to six times greater than normal have occurred at the same time in places such as Hawaii, Tahiti, Panama, and the Great Barrier Reef. The result has often been the loss of a fifty percent to nearly one hundred percent of the coral cover over large areas.

A single Acanthaster can consume five to six square meters of coral polyps per year, and dense populations can destroy up to six square kilometers per year and move on rapidly. Acanthasters show a preference for branching corals, especially Acroporids. After an outbreak in a particular area, it is common to find that Acroporids have been selectively removed, leaving a mosaic of living and dead corals. In places where Acroporids previously dominated the community devastation can be almost complete, and local areas of reefs have collapsed.

Areas of dead coral are usually colonized rapidly by algae and often are later colonized by sponges and soft corals. Increases in abundance of plant-eating fish and decreases in abundance of coral-feeding fish accompany these changes. Coral larvae settle among the algae and eventually establish flourishing coral colonies. In ten to fifteen years the reefs often return to about the same percentage of coral cover as before. Development of a four-species diversity takes about twenty years.

Two schools of thought exist concerning the cause of these outbreaks. One group holds that they are natural phenomena that have occurred many times in the past, citing old men's recollections of earlier outbreaks and evidence from traditional cultures. The other group maintains that recent human activities ranging from physical coral destruction through pollution to predator removal have triggered these events.

One theory, the adult aggregation hypothesis, maintains that most species is more abundant than we realize when a storm destroys coral and causes a food shortage. The adult Acanthasters converge on remaining portions of healthy coral and feed hungrily. Certainly there have been outbreaks of Acanthaster following large storms, but there is little evidence that the storms have caused the enough reef damage to create a food shortage for these starfish.

Two other hypotheses attempt to explain the increased abundance of Acanthaster after episodes of high terrestrial runoff following storms. The first hypothesis is that low salinity and high temperatures favor the survival of the starfish larvae. The second hypothesis emphasizes the