A Collection of TOEFL Reading Comprehension

Contents PRACTICE TEST 47 3
PRACTICE TEST 48 8
PRACTICE TEST 49 13
PRACTICE TEST 50 19
PRACTICE TEST 51 24
PRACTICE TEST 52 28
PRACTICE TEST 53 33
PRACTICE TEST 54 36
PRACTICE TEST 55 41
PRACTICE TEST 56 46
PRACTICE TEST 57 51
PRACTICE TEST 58 56
PRACTICE TEST 59 61
PRACTICE TEST 60 66
PRACTICE TEST 61 72
PRACTICE TEST 62 77
PRACTICE TEST 63 82
PRACTICE TEST 64 82
PRACTICE TEST 65 82
PRACTICE TEST 66 82
ANSWER KEY 82 PRACTICE TEST 47
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all been replaced by new ones even bacteria without flagella are thus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 183