TOEFL Reading Comprehension
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. In the fourth paragraph, the author implies that imagination is most important to scientists when they
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A) evaluate previous work on a problem
C) gather known facts
(B) formulate possible solutions to a problem
(D) close an investigation
. In line 21, the author refers to a hypotheses as "a leap into the unknown" in order to show that hypotheses
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A) are sometimes ill-conceived
C) go beyond available facts
(B) can lead to dangerous resultss
(D) require effort to formulate
. In the last paragraph, what does the author imply a major function of hypotheses?
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A) Sifting through known facts
B) Communicating a scientist's thoughts to others
C) Providing direction for scientific research
D) Linking together different theories
9. Which of the following statements is supported by the passage?
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A) Theories are simply imaginary models of past events.
B) It is better to revise a hypothesis than to reject it.
C) A scientist's most difficult task is testing hypotheses.
D) A good scientist needs to be creative.
Question 10-20
By the mid-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American
language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the
United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels,
taverns, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh
fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1860-1865), as ice used to refrigerate freight
cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half the ice sold in New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to
families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household
convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.
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10) Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early
nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a
science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The commonsense notion that the best
icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was
the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to
15) economize ice included wrapping the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its
job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate
balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.
But as early as 1803, an ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on
the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for
20) which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his
own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the
rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his
butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox,
Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in
order to keep their produce cool.
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