TOEFL PRACTICE TEST
January 1993
Passage 1
Bacteria are extremely small living
things. While we measure our own sizes in inches or centimeters, bacterial size
is measured in microns. One micron is a thousandth of a millimeter a pinhead is
about a millimeter across. Rod shaped bacteria are usually from two to tour
microns long, while rounded ones are generally one micron in diameter Thus if
you enlarged a founded bacterium a thousand times, it would be just about the
size of a pinhead. An adult human magnified by the same amount would be over a
mile(1.6 kilometers) tall.
Even with an ordinary microscope, you
must look closely to see bacteria. Using a magnification of 100 times, one
finds that bacteria are barely visible as tiny rods or dots One cannot make out
anything of their structure. Using special stains, one can see that some
bacteria have attached to them wavy - looking "hairs" called
flagella. Others have only one flagellum. The flagella rotate, pushing the
bacteria though the water. Many bacteria lack flagella and cannot move about by
their own power while others can glide along over surfaces by some little
understood mechanism.
From the bacterial point of view, the
world is a very different place from what it is to humans To a bacterium water
is as thick as molasses is to us. Bacteria are so small that they are
influenced by the movements of the chemical molecules around them. Bacteria
under the microscope, even those with no flagella, often bounce about in the water.
This is because they collide with the water molecules and are pushed this way
and that. Molecules move so rapidly that within a tenth of a second the
molecules around a bacterium have all been replaced by new ones even bacteria
without flagella are thus constantly exposed to a changing environment.
1. Which of the following is the main
topic of the passage?
(A) The characteristics of bacteria (B) How bacteria
reproduce
(C) The various functions of bacteria (A) How bacteria
contribute to disease
2. Bacteria are measured in
(A) inches (B)
centimeters (C) microns (D) millimeters
3. Which of the following is the
smallest?
(A) A pinhead (B)
A rounded bacterium
(C) A microscope (D)
A rod-shaped bacterium
4. According to the passage, someone
who examines bacteria using only a microscope that magnifies 100 times would
see
(A) tiny dots (B)
small "hairs"
(C) large rods (D)
detailed structures
5. The relationship between a bacterium
and its flagella is most nearly analogous to which of the following?
(A) A rider jumping on a horse's back (B) A ball being hit by a
bat
(C) A boat powered by a motor (D) A door closed
by a gust of wind
6. In line 16, the author compares
water to molasses, in order to introduce which of the following topics?
(A) The bacterial content of different liquids
(B) What happens when bacteria are added to
molasses
(C) The molecular structures of different chemicals
(D) How difficult it is for bacteria to move
through water
Passage 2
One of the most popular literary figures
in American literature is a woman who spent almost half of her long life in
China, a country on a continent thousands of miles from the United States. In
her lifetime she earned this country's most highly acclaimed literary award:
the Pulitzer Prize, and also the most prestigious form of literary recognition
in the world, the Nobel Prize for Literature. Pearl S. Buck was almost a
household word throughout much of her lifetime because of her prolific literary
output, which consisted of some eighty - five published works, including
several dozen novels, six collections of short stories, fourteen books for
children, and more than a dozen works of nonfiction. When she was eighty years
old, some twenty - five volumes were awaiting publication. Many of those books
were set in China, the land in which she spent so much of her life. Her books
and her life served as a bridge between the cultures of the East and the West.
As the product of those two cultures she became as the described herself,
"mentally bifocal." Her unique background made her into an unusually
interesting and versatile human being. As we examine the life of Pearl Buck, we
cannot help but be aware that we are in fact meeting three separate people: a
wife and mother, an internationally famous writer and a humanitarian and
philanthropist. One cannot really get to know Pearl Buck without learning about
each of the three. Though honored in her lifetime with the William Dean Howell
Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in addition to the Nobel and
Pulitzer prizes. Pearl Buck as a total human being, not only a famous author.
is a captivating subject of study.
1. What is the author's main purpose in
the passage?
(A) To offer a criticism of the works of Pearl
Buck.
(B) To illustrate Pearl Buck's views on Chinese
literature
(C) To indicate the background and diverse
interests of Pearl Buck
(D) To discuss Pearl Buck's influence on the
cultures of the East and the West
2. According to the passage, Pearl Buck
is known as a writer of all of the following EXCEPT
(A) novels (B)
children's books (C) poetry (D) short stories
3. Which of the following is NOT
mentioned by the author as an award received by Pearl Buck?
(A) The Nobel Prize (B)
The Newberry Medal
(C) The William Dean Howell medal (D) The Pulitzer prize
4. According to the passage, Pearl Buck
was an unusual figure in American literature in that she
(A) wrote extensively about a very different
culture
(B) published half of her books abroad
(C) won more awards than any other woman of her time
(D) achieved her first success very late in life
5. According to the passage, Pearl Buck
described herself as "mentally bifocal" to suggest that she was
(A) capable of resolving the differences between
two distinct linguistic systems
(B) keenly aware of how the past could influence
the future
(C) capable of producing literary works of interest
to both adults and children
(D) equally familiar with two different cultural
environments
6. The author's attitude toward Pearl
Buck could best be described as
(A) indifferent (B)
admiring (C) sympathetic (D) tolerant
Passage 3
When we accept the evidence of our
unaided eyes and describe the Sun as a yellow star, we have summed up the most
important single fact about it-at this moment in time.
It appears probable, however, that
sunlight will be the color we know for only a negligibly small part of the
Sun's history. Stars, like individuals, age and change. As we look out into
space, We see around us stars at all stages of evolution. There are faint
blood-red dwarfs so cool that their surface temperature is a mere 4,000 degrees
Fahrenheit, there are searing ghosts blazing at 100, 000 degrees Fahrenheit and
almost too hot to be seen, for the great part of their radiation is in the invisible
ultraviolet range. Obviously, the "daylight" produced by any star
depends on its temperature; today(and for ages to come) our Sun is at about
10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and this means that most of the Sun's light is
concentrated in the yellow band of the spectrum, falling slowly in intensity
toward both the longer and shorter light waves.
That yellow "hump"
will shift as the Sun evolves, and the light of day will change accordingly. It
is natural to assume that as the Sun grows older, and uses up its hydrogen
fuel-which it is now doing at the spanking rate of half a billion tons a
second- it will become steadily colder and redder.
1. What is the passage mainly about?
(A) Faint dwarf stars (B) The evolutionary
cycle of the Sun
(C) The Sun's fuel problem (D) The dangers of invisible
radiation
2. What does the author say is
especially important about the Sun at the present time?
(A) It appears yellow (B) It always remains
the same
(C) It has a short history (D) It is too cold
3. Why are very hot stars referred to
as "ghosts"?
(A) They are short- lived. (B) They are mysterious.
(C) They are frightening. (D) They are nearly invisible.
4. According to the passage as the Sun
continues to age, it is likely to become what color?
(A) Yellow (B)
Violet (C) Red (D) White
5. In line 15, to which of the
following does "it" refer?
(A) yellow "hump" (B) day (C)
Sun (D) hydrogen
fuel
Passage 4
If by "suburb" is meant an
urban margin that grows more rapidly than its already developed interior, the
process of suburbanization began during the emergence of the industrial city in
the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Before that period the city was a
small highly compact cluster in which people moved about on foot and goods were
conveyed by horse and cart. But the early factories built in the 1830's and
1840's were located along waterways and near railheads at the edges of cities,
and housing was needed for the thousands of people drawn by the prospect of
employment. In time, the factories were surrounded by proliferating mill towns
of apartments and row houses that abutted the older, main cities. As a defense
against this encroachment and to enlarge their tax bases, the cities
appropriated their industrial neighbors. In 1854, for example, the city of
Philadelphia annexed most of Philadelphia County. Similar municipal maneuvers
took place in Chicago and in New York Indeed, most great cities of the United
States achieved such status only by incorporating the communities along their
borders.
With the acceleration of industrial
growth came acute urban crowding and accompanying social stress conditions that
began to approach disastrous proportions when, in 1888, the first commercially
successful electric traction line was developed. Within a few years the horse -
drawn trolleys were retired and electric streetcar networks crisscrossed and
connected every major urban area, fostering a wave of suburbanization that
transformed the compact industrial city into a dispersed metropolis. This first
phase of mass - scale suburbanization was reinforced by the simultaneous
emergence of the urban Middle class whose desires for homeownership In
neighborhoods far from the aging inner city were satisfied by the developers of
single-family housing tracts.
1. Which of the following is the best
title for the passage?
(A) The growth of Philadelphia (B) The Origin of
the Suburb
(C) The Development of City Transportation (D) The Rise of the Urban Middle
Class
2. The author mentions that areas
bordering the cities have grown during periods of
(A) industrialization (B) inflation
(C) revitalization (D)
unionization
3. In line 10 the word
"encroachment" refers to which of the following?
(A) The smell of the factories (B) The growth
of mill towns
(C) The development of waterways (D) The loss of jobs
4. Which of the following was NOT
mentioned in the passage as a factor in nineteenth-century suburbanization?
(A) Cheaper housing (B)
Urban crowding
(C) The advent of an urban middle class (D) The invention of the electric
streetcar
5. It can be inferred from the passage
that after 1890 most people traveled around cities by
(A) automobile (B)
cart
(C) horse-draw trolley (D) electric streetcar
6. Where in the passage does the author
describe the cities as they were prior to suburbanization.
(A) Lines 3-5 (B)
Lines 5-9
(C) Lines 12- 13 (D)
Lines 15-18
Passage 5
The first English attempts to
colonize North America were controlled by individuals rather than companies.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert was the first Englishman to send colonists to the New
World. His initial expedition, which sailed in 1578 with a patent granted by
Queen Elizabeth was defeated by the Spanish. A second attempt ended in disaster
in 1583, when Gilbert and his
ship were lost in a storm. In
the following year, Gilbert's half brother, Sir Water Raleigh, having obtained
a renewal of the patent, sponsored an expedition that explored the coast of the
region that he named "Virginia." Under Raleigh's direction efforts
were then made to establish a colony on Roanoke island in 1585 an6 1587. The
survivors of the first settlement on Roanoke returned to England in 1586, but
the second group of colonists disappeared without leaving a trace. The failure
of the Gilbert and Raleigh ventures made it clear that the tasks they had
undertaken were too big for any one colonizer. Within a short time the trading
company had supplanted the individual promoter of colonization.
1. Which of the following would be the
most appropriate title for the passage?
(A) The Regulation of Trading Companies
(B) British - Spanish Rivalry in the New World
(C) Early Attempts at Colonizing North America
(D) Royal Patents Issued in the 16th Century
2. The passage states which of the
following about the first English people to be involved in establishing
colonies in North America?
(A) They were requested to do so by Queen
Elizabeth.
(B) They were members of large trading companies.
(C) They were immediately successful.
(D) They were acting on their own.
3. According to the passage, which of
the following statements about Sir Humphrey Gilbert is true?
(A) He never settled in North America.
(B) His trading company was given a patent by the
queen.
(C) He fought the Spanish twice.
(D) He died in 1587.
4. When did Sir Walter Raleigh's
initial expedition set out for North America?
(A) 1577 (B)
1579 (C) 1582 (D) 1584
5. Which of the following can be
inferred from the passage about members of the first Roanoke settlement?
(A) They explored the entire coastal region. (B) Some did not survive.
(C) They named the area "Virginia". (D) Most were not
experienced sailors.
6. According to the passage, the first
English settlement on Roanoke Island was established in
(A) 1578 (B)
1583 (C) 1585 (D) 1587
7. According to the passage, which of;
the following statements about the second settlement on Roanoke Island is true?
(A) Its settlers all gave up and returned to
England.
(B) It lasted for several years.
(C) The fate of its inhabitants is unknown.
(D) It was conquered by the Spanish.
ANSWER KEY
PRACTICE TEST
ACBACD CCBADB BADCC BABADA CDADBCC