托福阅读看文章速度太慢?这5个阅读坏习惯赶紧改
托福阅读考试时间很容易不够用，而导致时间不够用的原因中，比较常见的一点就是阅读看文章速度偏慢。 许多同学阅读慢不是因为理解速度跟不上，而是之前养成的一些阅读坏习惯拖了大家后腿。想要改正这些坏习惯当然要先了解它们，下面小编就来具体分析。
托福阅读看文章速度太慢?这5个阅读坏习惯赶紧改!
托福阅读坏习惯表现：看文章时头跟着动◤
这个习惯可能很多同学都意识不到，实际上看似微小的动作也会耗费大家的阅读时间，对阅读速度产生不利影响。
这种习惯的具体表现是考生会下意识地把头或者说鼻子正中间对着自己看到的内容，因此每看完一行文字都会导致大家出现一个比较明显的转头动作，也会花费一定时间。
其实比较正确的做法是头不动视线移动，不仅换行速度会更快，考生也不容易跟丢阅读内容。
虽然这种情况似乎不会消耗很多时间，但如今的托福阅读文章篇幅很长，当中需要换行很多次，积累下来大家浪费掉的时间还是很可观的，因此考生也需要主动意识到问题并进行改正。
托福阅读坏习惯表现：指着文章阅读◤
这种坏习惯一般是在看书面的密集文字时养成和比较常见的，比如阅读文章过程中就很容易出现这类做法。
而到了托福考试中，虽然考试模式改为了电脑机考，但有些同学却还是没能戒掉这种习惯，总是会不自觉地用笔指着文章来阅读。
而这种做法的坏处在于不仅会减慢阅读速度，还会干扰大家的注意力。因为指读会让大家的注意力跟着手指移动，考生的大脑思考和反应速度就容易受到限制。
结果是虽然看完了文章从字面上似乎都看懂了，但大脑中却因为没有足够的思考而无法形成了连贯整体的印象，实际上真正思考和记住的东西并不多，阅读理解的效率可以说是相当低下的。
托福阅读坏习惯表现：心中默读◤
做阅读不能发声，但有些同学虽然嘴上不出声，实际上心里面还是在说话，相当于自己心里还是在默默发出声音读每一个单词，这种习惯也是比较拖节奏浪费时间的。
为了能够在心里读清每个单词，大家的阅读速度和理解效率势必会受到干扰，而因为是心中默读，想要纠正这种习惯也比较困难。
建议大家在阅读时一方面加强限时练习，给自己主动增加时间压力强迫自己快速思考;另外带着问题去读文章，在读的过程中加大思维力度，把默读的杂音都排除出脑海，坚持一段时间后默读的坏习惯应该可以得到改正。
托福阅读坏习惯表现：不出声阅读◤
这种坏习惯和上面的心中默读类似，托福考试中阅读部分是不能出声的，所以会演变成没有明显声音但考生的嘴唇喉咙仍然在动的情况，大家自己观察一下会发现身边许多人在不能发声读文章的时候都会存在这种现象。
而这种阅读坏习惯同样会影响考生的阅读和理解速度，说到底还是大家从获取文字到理解文字的过程仍然必须依赖发声环节所致，也就是阅读习惯技巧不够熟练所造成的。
考生需要培养看到文字内容直接思考的能力，才能比较有效地摆脱这种坏习惯。
托福阅读坏习惯表现：回读◤
缺乏阅读自信或是理解反应速度比较慢的考生身上常会出现这类习惯。其具体表现是读文章时经常会返回之前的地方再读一遍，以确认自己读得没错理解是正确的。
而一旦考生养成了对回读的依赖性，其危害可以说是显而易见的。好好的读一遍文章变成了读两遍甚至更多遍，考试时间自然会受到很大的影响。
为了避免这种情况考生需要学会逐步培养自己的阅读自信，尽量挑选符合自己阅读理解能力和水平的文章来逐步提升阅读基本功。
六个方法解决托福阅读中的生词
1. 下定义法
这个方法在托福阅读考试中的运用还是很普遍的，多用于描述一个新专业，新领域，新单词。而且在文章首段出现的频率最高，因为文章首段通常都是为本文话题或标题下定义。
例：Archaeologyis partly the discovery of the treasures of the past， partly the careful workof the scientific analyst， partly the exercise of the creative imagination.(“The Nature And Aims of Archaeology”) 从“is”这个词不难发现后面的部分都是为archaeology下定义：对过去财物的发掘，细致的科学分析，创造力的想象------考古学(以-ology为后缀都是表示某门学科)。
例：Theseasonal impact of day length on physiological responses is calledphotoperiodism. (“The effects of light on plant and animal species”) “is called”的前半句也起了解释说明的作用：日长的生理反应称为光周期的季节性影响。
2. 符号法
无论是考试中还是剑桥系列，我们常发现某个单词或词组，乃至句子的前后常会出现一些特殊符号，比如：破折号(—)，冒号(：)，小括号()，引号(“ ”)。这些符号都是帮助大家猜测生词的clue， 它们的前后通常都是对托福阅读词汇的解释和说明。
例：Generally，the rates have been modest (lower than bank rates). ( “Micro-Enterprise Creditfor Street Youth”) 括号里的部分是对其前面的modest做说明，即比银行的利息低一些。
例：Inall cases， someone has to act as a source of language data--- rmant指的是充当语言资料来源的人。需要提示的是，经常会在小括号里出现i.e， 意思是thatis to say.
3. 举例子
托福阅读试题经常会在某个潜在生词的后面，举出一系列的例子，此时，大家可以根据例子，总结它们的共性。举例子的一些标志词：forexample， for instance， such as， just like， e.g.
例：Themarket for tourism in remote areas is booming as never before. Countries allacross… such as mountains， Arctic lands， deserts， small islands andwetlands (“The Impact of Wilderness Tourism”) 第一句的remote可以通过后面的例子，高山，北极地区，荒漠，小岛，湿地，得出指的是偏远地区。
4. 句子之间的关联词
句子之间的关联词主要分为转折和并列，透露了两句之间表达意思的方向性是否一致。我们完全可以通过已知的半句所表述的涵义，借助关联词，来推测另外半句的意思。
并列关系：and， similarly，equally， also， both … and…
转折关系：but， however，yet， instead， nevertheless， by contrast， on the other hand
例：Internationalcommerce was therefore dominated by raw materials， such as wheat， wood and ironore， or processed commodities， such as meat and steel. (“Delivering The Goods”)“or”表示或者，虽然是并列关系，但在意思上是相反的。Processedcommodities不难理解是加工过的产品，那“or”前面的句子指的就该是没有加工过的产品，即raw materials， 原材料。
例：Forexample， desert annual germinate， flower， and seed whenever suitable rainfalloccurs… (“The effects of light on plant and animal species”) 从“and”可以判断其前后三个词的词性相同，意思上也应该是同一个方向。flower表示开花，seed是结种，那germinate自然也是动词，是在开花之前的阶段，可粗略理解为生长或发芽。
5. 常识和上下文
常识和上下文也是作为揣测词义的一个有效途径，而这里所言的常识是涉及各领域，学科，平时累积而成，众所周知的知识，常理。
例：Theearliest method of making fire was through friction. European peasants wouldinsert a wooden drill in a round hole and rotate it briskly between theirpalms. (“How Fire Leapt to Life”) 最早的取火方式是钻木取火，其原理是摩擦生热。通过下文的例子也可看出这一点。欧洲的农民会把一个木制的钻头插入一个圆形的洞，然后在手掌间迅速的旋转它。Friction就是摩擦的意思。
6. 同位语
同位语是指一个名词(或其它形式)对另一个名词或代词进行修饰，限定或说明，这个名词(或其它形式)就是同位语。同位语与被它限定的词的格要一致，并常常紧挨在一起，常出现在句子中间或者后面的位置。
例：Oneof the most important new methodologies is biomechanics， the study of the body in motion. (“How much higher?How much faster?”) 有时候同位语的解释更让人容易理解和接受，biomechanics专业说法是生物力学，而同位语的表达更平易近人：对身体运动的研究。
托福阅读真题详解1
Prehistoric mammoths have been preserved in the famous tar pits of Rancho La Brea (Brea is the Spanish word for tar) in what is now the heart of Los Angeles, California. These tar pits have been known for centuries and were formerly mined for their natural asphalt, a black or brown petroleum-like substance. Thousands of tons were extracted before 1875, when it was first noticed that the tar contained fossil remains. Major excavations were undertaken that established the significance of this remarkable site. The tar pits were found to contain the remains of scores of species of animals from the last 30,000 years of the Ice Age.
Since then, over 100 tons of fossils, 1.5 million from vertebrates, 2.5 million from invertebrates, have been recovered, often in densely concentrated and tangled masses. The creatures found range from insects and birds to giant ground sloth's, but a total of 17 proboscides (animals with a proboscis or long nose) — including mastodons and Columbian mammoths — have been recovered, most of them from Pit 9, the deepest bone-bearing deposit, which was excavated in 1914. Most of the fossils date to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The asphalt at La Brea seeps to the surface, especially in the summer, and forms shallow puddles that would often have been concealed by leaves and dust. Unwary animals would become trapped on these thin sheets of liquid asphalt, which are extremely sticky in warm weather. Stuck, the unfortunate beasts would die of exhaustion and hunger or fall prey to predators that often also became stuck.
As the animals decayed, more scavengers would be attracted and caught in their turn. Carnivores greatly outnumber herbivores in the collection: for every large herbivore, there is one saber-tooth cat, a coyote, and four wolves. The fact that some bones are heavily weathered shows that some bodies remained above the surface for weeks or months. Bacteria in the asphalt would have consumed some of the tissues other than bones, and the asphalt itself would dissolve what was left, at the same time impregnating and beautifully preserving the saturated bones, rendering them dark brown and shiny.
1. What aspect of the La Brea tar pits does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) The amount of asphalt that was mined there
(B) The chemical and biological interactions between asphalt and animals
(C) The fossil remains that have been found there
(D) Scientific methods of determining the age of tar pits
2. In using the phrase the heart of Los Angeles in line 2, the author is talking about the city's
(A) beautiful design
(B) central area
(C) basic needs
(D) supplies of natural asphalt
3. The word noticed in line 5 closest in meaning to
(A) predicted
(B) announced
(C) corrected
(D) observed
4. The word tangled in line 10 is closest in meaning to
(A) buried beneath
(B) twisted together
(C) quickly formed
(D) easily dated
5. The word them in line 13 refers to
(A) insects
(B) birds
(C) cloths
(D) proboscideans
6. How many proboscideans have been found at the La Brea tar pits?
(A) 9
(B) 17
(C) 1.5 million
(D) 2.5 million
7. The word concealed in line 17 is closest in meaning to
(A) highlighted
(B) covered
(C) transformed
(D) contaminated
8. Why does the author mention animals such as coyotes and wolves in paragraph 4?
(A) To give examples of animals that are classified as carnivores
(B) To specify the animals found least commonly at La Brea
(C) To argue that these animals were especially likely to avoid extinction.
(D) To define the term scavengers
托福阅读真题详解2
One area of paleoanthropological study involves the eating and dietary habits of hominids, erect bipedal primates — including early humans. It is clear that at some stage of history, humans began to carry their food to central places, called home bases, where it was shared and consumed with the young and other adults. The use of home bases is a fundamental component of human social behavior; the common meal served at a common hearth is a powerful symbol, a mark of social unity. Home base behavior does not occur among nonhuman primates and is rare among mammals. It is unclear when humans began to use home bases, what kind of communications and social relations were involved, and what the ecological and food-choice contexts of the shift were. Work on early tools, surveys of paleoanthropological sites, development and testing of broad ecological theories, and advances in comparative primatology are contributing to knowledge about this central chapter in human prehistory.
One innovative approach to these issues involves studying damage and wear on stone tools. Researchers make tools that replicate excavated specimens as closely as possible and then try to use them as the originals might have been used, in woodcutting, hunting, or cultivation. Depending on how the tool is used, characteristic chippage patterns and microscopically distinguishable polishes develop near the edges. The first application of this method of analysis to stone tools that are 1.5 million to 2 million years old indicates that, from the start, an important function of early stone tools was to extract highly nutritious food — meat and marrow — from large animal carcasses. Fossil bones with cut marks caused by stone tools have been discovered lying in the same 2-million-year-old layers that yielded the oldest such tools and the oldest hominid specimens (including humans) with larger than ape-sized brains. This discovery increases scientists' certainty about when human ancestors began to eat more meat than present-day nonhuman primates. But several questions remain unanswered: how frequently meat eating occurred; what the social implications of meat eating were; and whether the increased use of meat coincides with the beginnings of the use of home bases.
1. The passage mainly discusses which of the following aspects of hominid behavior?
(A) Changes in eating and dietary practices
(B) The creation of stone hunting tools
(C) Social interactions at home bases
(D) Methods of extracting nutritious food from carcasses
2. According to the passage , bringing a meal to a location to be shared by many individuals is
(A) an activity typical of nonhuman primates
(B) a common practice among animals that eat meat
(C) an indication of social unity
(D) a behavior that encourages better dietary habits
3. The word consumed in line 4 is closest in meaning to
(A) prepared
(B) stored
(C) distributed
(D) eaten
4. According to paragraph 2, researchers make copies of old stone tools in order to
(A) protect the old tools from being worn out
(B) display examples of the old tools in museums
(C) test theories about how old tools were used
(D) learn how to improve the design of modern tools
5. In paragraph 2, the author mentions all of the following as examples of ways in which early
stone tools were used EXCEPT to
(A) build home bases
(B) obtain food
(C) make weapons
(D) shape wood
6. The word innovative in line 13 is closest in meaning to
(A) good
(B) new
(C) simple
(D) costly
7. The word them in line 15 refers to
(A) issues
(B) researchers
(C) tools
(D) specimens
8. The author mentions characteristic chippage patterns in line 16 as an example of
(A) decorations cut into wooden objects
(B) differences among tools made of various substances
(C) impressions left on prehistoric animal bones
(D) indications of wear on stone tools
9. The word extract in line 19 is closest in meaning to
(A) identify
(B) remove
(C) destroy
(D) compare
10. The word whether in line 26 is closest in meaning to
(A) if
(B) how
(C) why
(D) when
