2013年托业阅读知识汇总二

阅读是托业考试的一项重要内容，现在小编给大家做了一个托业考试(TOEIC)阅读真题汇总，供大家参考，预祝大家取的好成绩。

2013年托业阅读知识整理1

Here's a riddle for you: When is the discovery of 2,813 dead and rotting pigs in a major city's water source not a public health problem?

给你出个谜语：一个大型城市的水源在什么情况下发现2813头腐烂的死猪不算是一个公共卫生问题?

Answer: When the discovery is made in China.

答案：当在中国发现的时候。

The Shanghai water bureau, which oversees the water consumed in China's largest city, was insisting on Monday that tap water derived from the Huangpu River met national standards despite the presence of the decomposing pigs.

负责监管这座中国最大城市用水的上海水务局在周一坚称，尽管出现大量腐败的死猪，来自黄浦江的自来水水质仍然符合国家标准。

All I can say is that I am glad I live in Beijing, not Shanghai.

我所能说的是，我很高兴自己住在北京，而不是上海。

2013年托业阅读知识整理2

Native American languages

Before Europeans arrived in North America there were over 300 Native American languages. Some have now died out, and of the 250 or so remaining many are spoken only by a few older people. Other languages, like Cherokee, are more widely spoken. Most Native Americans speak English, some as their first language and others as their second.

Native American languages have added many words to English, though the meaning of a word has often been changed. Teepees are a kind of tent, _ampum belts were made of beads and since the belts had great value Europeans used wampum to mean 'money'. Moccasins, a kind of shoe, are today worn by people all over the world. Many Native American words describe the things they name. For example, the Asakiwaki tribe's name means 'people of the yellow earth', and the Cherokees' name for themselves, Ani-Yun'wiya, means 'the leading people'. Indian names for Whites included 'people greedily grasping for land'.

Many American place names have their roots in Native American languages. _hio, for instance, is a Native American name, and the names of many of its towns and cities, such as Chillicothe and Sandusky, and the lakes Scioto and Olentangy, are of Native American origin.

Native Americans today

According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a part of the US government, there are now about 550 tribes. These include well-known groups like the _avajo and _ioux, and less famous tribes like the Cayuse. The number of Native Americans living in the US is about 1.2 million.

Almost a million live on reservations, areas of land that the government has allowed them to keep as their own. Native Americans are US citizens, and have the rights and responsibilities of any US citizen. However, reservations have their own governments and police forces and Native Americans pay different taxes. They also have the right to hunt and fish where and when they like, while other Americans have to get a licence.

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On or off the reservations Native Americans find it difficult to live the traditional life. Activities of other Americans affect the way they live. Building dams across a river, for example, can affect the numbers of fish living there, so that even though Native Americans have the right to fish they may not be able to catch anything. Away from the reservations, many Native Americans find that their culture is very different from that of white people and have difficulty adapting.

Poverty is a serious problem. About 37% of people who live on reservations are unemployed, compared with 6% of the general population. Many tribes try to bring in money from outside. Some sell rights to search for oil on their reservation, others use the fact that the reservation makes its own rules to open casinos where people from outside can come and gamble. Gambling is illegal in most parts of the US and many Americans want it to remain so, but it makes a lot of money for the tribes. This brings Native Americans, once again, into conflict with white Americans.

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The continent's first inhabitants walked into North America across what is now the Bering Strait from Asia. For the next 20,000 years these pioneering settlers were essentially left alone to develop distinct and dynamic cultures. In the modern US, their descendants include the Pueblo people in what is now New Mexico; Apache in Texas; Navajo in Arizona, Colorado and Utah; Hopi in Arizona; Crow in Montana; Cherokee in North Carolina; and Mohawk and Iroquois in New York State.

The Norwegian explorer Leif Eriksson was the first European to reach North America, some 500 years before a disoriented Columbus accidentally discovered 'Indians' in Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1492. By the mid-1550s, much of the Americas had been poked and prodded by a parade of explorers from Spain, Portugal, England and France.

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The first colonies attracted immigrants looking to get rich quickly and return home, but they were soon followed by migrants whose primary goal was to colonize. The Spanish founded the first permanent European settlement in St Augustine, Florida, in 1565; the French moved in on Maine in 1602, and Jamestown, Virginia, became the first British settlement in 1607. The first Africans arrived as 'indentured laborers' with the Brits a year prior to English Puritan pilgrims' escape of religious persecution. The pilgrims founded a colony at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, in 1620 and signed the famous Mayflower Compact - a declaration of self-government that would later be echoed in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. British attempts to assert authority in its 13 North American colonies led to the French and Indian War (1757-63). The British were victorious but were left with a nasty war debt, which they tried to recoup by imposing new taxes. The rallying cry 'no taxation without representation' united the colonies, who ceremoniously dumped caffeinated cargo overboard during the Boston Tea Party. Besieged British general Cornwallis surrendered to American commander George Washington five years later at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. In the 19th century, America's mantra was 'Manifest Destiny.' A combination of land purchases, diplomacy and outright wars of conquest had by 1850 given the US roughly its present shape. In 1803, Napoleon dumped the entire Great Plains for a pittance, and Spain chipped in with Florida in 1819. The Battle of the Alamo during the 1835 Texan Revolution paved the way for Texan independence from Mexico, and the war with Mexico (1846-48) secured most of the southwest, including California.