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OG-2
Passage 7
Until recently, many anthropologists assumed that the environment of what is now the southwestern United States shaped the social history and culture of the region’s indigenous peoples. Building on this assumption, archaeologists asserted that adverse environmental conditions and droughts were responsible for the disappearances and migrations of southwestern populations from many sites they once inhabited.
However, such deterministic arguments fail to acknowledge that local environmental variability in the Southwest makes generalizing about that environment difficult. To examine the relationship between environmental variation and sociocultural change in the Western Pueblo region of central Arizona, which indigenous tribes have occupied continuously for at least 800 years, a research team recently reconstructed the climatic, vegetational, and erosional cycles of past centuries. The researchers found it impossible to provide a single, generally applicable characterization of environmental conditions for the region. Rather, they found that local areas experienced different patterns of rainfall, wind, and erosion, and that such conditions had prevailed in the Southwest for the last 1,400 years. Rainfall, for example, varied within and between local valley systems, so that even adjacent agricultural fields can produce significantly different yields.
The researchers characterized episodes of variation in southwestern environments by frequency: low-frequency environmental processes occur in cycles longer than one human generation, which generally is considered to last about 25 years, and high-frequency processes have shorter cycles. The researchers pointed out that low-frequency processes, such as fluctuations in stream flow and groundwater levels, would not usually be apparent to human populations. In contrast, high-frequency fluctuations such as seasonal temperature variations are observable and somewhat predictable, so that groups could have adapted their behaviors accordingly. When the researchers compared sequences of sociocultural change in the Western Pueblo region with episodes of low- and high-frequency environmental variation, however, they found no simple correlation between environmental process and sociocultural change or persistence.
Although early Pueblo peoples did protect themselves against environmental risk and uncertainty, they responded variously on different occasions to similar patterns of high-frequency climatic and environmental change. The researchers identified seven major adaptive responses, including increased mobility, relocation of permanent settlements, changes in subsistence foods, and reliance on trade with other groups. These findings suggest that groups’ adaptive choices depended on cultural and social as well as environmental factors and were flexible strategies rather than uncomplicated reactions to environmental change. Environmental conditions mattered, but they were rarely, if ever, sufficient to account for sociocultural persistence and change. Group size and composition, culture, contact with other groups, and individual choices and actions were — barring catastrophes such as floods or earthquakes — more significant for a population’s survival than were climate and environment.
1. The passage is primarily concerned with
A. explaining why certain research findings have created controversy
B. pointing out the flaws in a research methodology and suggesting a different approach
C. presenting evidence to challenge an explanation and offering an alternative explanation
D. elucidating the means by which certain groups have adapted to their environment
E. defending a long-held interpretation by presenting new research findings
2. Which of the following findings would most strongly support the assertion made by the archaeologists mentioned in line 3?
A. A population remained in a certain region at least a century after erosion wore away much of the topsoil that sustained grass for their grazing animals.
B. The range of a certain group’s agricultural activity increased over a century of gradual decrease in annual rainfall.
C. As winters grew increasingly mild in a certain region, the nomadic residents of the region continued to move between their summer and winter encampments.
D. An agricultural population began to trade for supplies of a grain instead of producing the grain in its own fields as it had in the past.
E. A half century of drought and falling groundwater levels caused a certain population to abandon their settlements along a riverbank.
3. The fact that “adjacent agricultural fields can produce significantly different yields” (lines 16–17) is offered as evidence of the
A. unpredictability of the climate and environment of the southwestern United States
B. difficulty of producing a consistent food supply for a large population in the Western Pueblo region
C. lack of water and land suitable for cultivation in central Arizona
D. local climatic variation in the environment of the southwestern United States
E. high-frequency environmental processes at work in the southwestern United States
4. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following activities is NOT an example of a population responding to high-frequency environmental processes?
A. Developing watertight jars in which to collect and store water during the rainy season
B. Building multistory dwellings in low-lying areas to avoid the flash flooding that occurs each summer
C. Moving a village because groundwater levels have changed over the last generation
D. Trading with other groups for furs from which to make winter clothes
E. Moving one’s herds of grazing animals each year between summer and winter pastures
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