托福阅读的思维方式就是托福阅读的出题方式，只有掌握了这种思维方式，才有可能在做题之前，预测到新托福阅读题的出题形式和特点，为找答案节省时间。老托福阅读试题的核心价值，在于其最贴近真题的阅读思维方式。此外老托福阅读真题比新托福IBT阅读文章要短，比较容易适应。这也是大家在备考托福的时候非常重要的一点。因为前期的入手如果能从容易的开始，就会形成一个循序渐进的过程方式，让大家的练习有一个提高的过程。
既然老托福阅读试题有这样的效果，那我们如何利用那有限的真题来达到锻炼自己的目的呢？事实上这就一个办法，就是坚持。本期为大家推荐老托福阅读的真题PASSAGE 45，附有原文及答案，希望对托福考生备考有所帮助。
By the turn of the century, the middle-class home in North American had been transformed. "The flow of industry has passed and left idle the loom in the attic, the soap kettle in the shed," Ellen Richards wrote in 1908. The urban middle class was now able to buy a wide array of food products and clothing — baked goods, canned goods, suits, shirts, shoes, and dresses. Not only had household production waned, but technological improvements were rapidly changing the rest of domestic work. Middle-class homes had indoor running water and furnaces, run on oil, coal, or gas, that produced hot water. Stoves were fueled by gas, and delivery services provided ice for refrigerators. Electric power was available for lamps, sewing machines, irons, and even vacuum cleaners. No domestic task was unaffected. Commercial laundries, for instance, had been doing the wash for urban families for decades; by the early 1900's the first electric washing machines were on the market.
One impact of the new household technology was to draw sharp dividing lines between women of different classes and regions. Technological advances always affected the homes of the wealthy first, filtering downward into the urban middle class. But women who lived on farms were not yet affected by household improvements. Throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, rural homes lacked running water and electric power. Farm women had to haul large quantities of water into the house from wells or pumps for every purpose. Doing the family laundry, in large vats heated over stoves, continued to be a full day's work, just as canning and preserving continued to be seasonal necessities. Heat was provided by wood or coal stoves. In addition, rural women continued to produce most of their families' clothing. The urban poor, similarly, reaped few benefits from household improvements. Urban slums such as Chicago's nineteenth ward often had no sewers, garbage collection, or gas or electric lines; and tenements lacked both running water and central heating. At the turn of the century, variations in the nature of women's domestic work were probably more marked than at any time before.
1. What is the main topic of the passage ?
(A) The creation of the urban middle class
(B) Domestic work at the turn of the century
(C) The spread of electrical power in the United States
(D) Overcrowding in American cities.
2. According to the passage , what kind of fuel was used in a stove in a typical middle-class household?
(A) oil
(B) coal
(C) gas
(D) wood
3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a household convenience in the passage ?
(A) the electric fan
(B) the refrigerator
(C) the electric light
(D) the washing machine
4. According to the passage, who were the first beneficiaries of technological advances?
(A) Farm women
(B) The urban poor
(C) The urban middle class
(D) The wealthy
5. The word "reaped" in line 23 is closest in meaning to
(A) gained
(B) affected
(C) wanted
(D) accepted
6. Which of the following best characterizes the passage 's organization?
(A) analysis of a quotation
(B) chronological narrative
(C) extended definition
(D) comparison and contrast
7. Where in the passage does the author discuss conditions in poor urban neighborhoods?
(A) lines 3-5
(B) lines 6-7
(C) lines 8-9
(D) lines 22-23
正确答案： BCADA DD
以上就是前程百利为大家整理的老托福阅读真题，考生可进行参考训练以提高自己的考试水平。若您想了解托福考试更多相关信息请关注前程百利。
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