2012年5月12日托福阅读真题回顾及解析

2012年5月12日托福阅读真题回顾及解析TOPIC 1玛雅文明及其衰败

考生回忆：

玛雅文明曾经辉煌；

衰落原因：战争；气候；不合理耕作

Non-ecological theories of Maya decline are divided into several subcategories, such as overpopulation, foreign invasion, peasant revolt, and the collapse of key trade routes. Ecological hypotheses (theories) include environmental disaster, epidemic disease, and climate change. There is evidence that the Maya population exceeded the carrying capacity of the environment including exhaustion of agricultural potential and overhunting of the large animals in the area. Some scholars have recently theorized that an intense 200 year drought led to the collapse of Maya civilization.

TOPIC 2生态区间与资源共享

考生回忆：

若资源有限：共同依赖该资源的生物会竞争，只有一种存活；

若资源充足：不竞争，都存活。

实验证明以上：在一个试管（tube）里养两种生命体（organism），结果最后只有一种存活了。得出结论两种竞争的生物在资源有限的同一时间同一环境下不能同时存活。第二次实验，把两种生物分别放在试管底部（tube bottom）和溶液（solution）表面，结果它们就都存活了，因为它们不争资源。

后来就说这种现象还能涉及多种物种。如某个地方有好几种鸟，它们都吃一样的虫子，每种飞的时候都结伙（flock），不过它们会在不同的时间迁徙（migrate）。它们共同生存，研究发现它们在树的canopy上都有自己的地盘，在不同的位置，所以互不影响。

The term niche differentiation as it applies to the field of ecology, refers to the process by which natural selection drives competing species into different patterns of resource use or different niches. This process allows two species to partition certain resources so that one species does not out-compete the other. Thus, coexistence is obtained through the differentiation of their realized ecological niches.

Spatial resource partitioning occurs when two competing species use the same resource by occupying different areas or habitats within the range of occurrence of the resource. Spatial partitioning can occur at small scales (microhabitat differentiation) or at large scales (geographical differentiation). Microhabitat differentiation occurs when two competing species with overlapping home ranges partition a resource. Two examples would be different species of fish feeding at different depths in a lake or different species of monkey feeding at different heights in a tree. Geographical differentiation is when two competing species have non-overlapping home ranges and thus partition resources. An example might be given with monkeys again: two competing species of monkey using the same species of fruit trees, but in different areas of the forest.

简析：

本次考题重复北美2011年4月2日考试。其中有两篇能够通过考生回忆还原。

第一篇“玛雅文明”的话题对于方兴未艾的“2012末日说”笼罩下的我们并不陌生。那么既是“衰败”就必然涉及到“为什么”的话题。而整篇文章正是以针对“WHY”问题的原因予以讨论。在类似类型的考试中，读者若能先行通过首段阅读开始向自己发问“为什么”，则剩下的段落的阅读就转化成了“主动阅读”，即并非消极接受信息，而是有的放矢地“等待”答案出现。

“第二篇”关于“生态区间”则属于“Reading To Learn”的范畴。能够将其相关的映射关键词（在考前班有过详细的论述）的概念摸清其含义，就已达到阅读的目的。那么这里的还原主要针对两个概念进行梳理--“Niche Differentiation”和“Geographic Isolation”。这两个概念是物种竞争与分化类话题的共同话题。我们多进行这样的阅读，实际上一种以不变应万变的备考及复习方式。