TOEFL Junior考试（初中托福）的阅读理解部分一般由7篇文章组成，每篇文章长度约200-350个单词，根据每篇文章的长度，对应4-9道题不等，考试时间为50分钟。

阅读文章大部分来自北美初高中学生的阅读能力范围之内的一些报纸，杂志等，体裁形式多样，如邀请函，电子邮件，海报，表格，小册子，时间表，新闻故事，说明文，议论文等。文章涉及的范围也具有国际范，涵盖艺术，人文，科学等，比如关于某种濒危动物的介绍，关于大气，宇宙的科普性说明，语言发展历史的学术报告等。

对于小托福的考生们，或未来必将走出国门的中国学生们来说，提高阅读能力是迟早的事，因为美国名校十分青睐阅读能力强的中国学生，比如SAT考试（申请美国大学名校和奖学金的重要参考），同样的总分，如果阅读成绩达到750分以上，那么申请名校和奖学金的成功率最大。而阅读成绩低于700分，那么申请美国综合排名前10的大学几率就较低。

阅读能力的高低取决于：阅读速度和阅读范围，建议多阅读一些英文小说，报纸，杂志等，我们的博客专栏特别开设了小托福大智慧--阅读系列，帮助中国学生们通过读文章，读出知识面，读出词汇量，读出阅读能力。

　　An Amazonian tribe has been discovered that has no concept of time or dates, scientists have said. Professor Chris Sinha, of the University of Portsmouth, led the research which found that the Amondawa people of Brazil do not even have words for "time", "week", "month" or "year"。

　　In his study, published in the journal Language and Cognition, he argues that it is the first time scientists have been able to prove time is not a deeply entrenched universal human concept, as previously thought.

　　Prof Sinha said: "For the Amondawa, time does not exist in the same way as it does for us. We can now say without doubt that there is at least one language and culture which does not have a concept of time as something that can be measured, counted or talked about in the abstract." This doesn't mean that the Amondawa are 'people outside time', but they live in a world of events, rather than seeing events as being embedded in time."

　　Team members including linguist Wany Sampaio and anthropologist Vera da Silva Sinha, spent eight weeks with the Amondawa researching how their language conveys concepts like "next week" or "last year". There were no words for such concepts, only divisions of day and night and rainy and dry seasons. They also found nobody in the community had an age. Instead, they change their names to reflect their life stage and position within their society. For example a little child will give up their name to a newborn sibling and take on a new one.

　　Prof Sinha said: "For these Amondawa people time isn't money, they aren't racing against the clock to complete anything, and nobody is discussing next week or next year; they don't even have words for 'week', 'month' or 'year'. You could say they enjoy a certain freedom."

Comprehension

1. What do you think a linguist (paragraph 4) studies into?

A. time

B. language

C. ancient events

D. human behavior

2. What can we learn from the example in the 4th paragraph?

A. how the Amondawa people know about time

B. how the Amondawa people distinguish day from night

C. why the Amondawa people change their names

D. how the Amondawa people know about their ages

3. What kind of concept can the Amondawa people tell of the following choices?

A. age

B. time

C. date

D. day and night

4. What's the main idea of the passage?

A. the life in Amondawa tribe

B. the behavior. of Amondawa people

C. the life stage and position within Amondawa people

D. the lack of the concept of time in Amondawa tribe

Background Information

研究人员发现，巴西亚马逊丛林中有一个名叫阿莫达瓦的部落，那里的人没有时间概念。在他们的语言中没有“时间”、“星期”、“月”和“年”等词语，只区分白天、黑夜、旱季和雨季。该部落的人们也没有年龄，而是根据每个人所处的生长阶段和在部落中的地位不断变换名字。比如，一个孩子长到一定阶段后就要换一个名字，他原来的名字就由新出生的小孩继续沿用。研究人员表示，这一发现说明时间并不是全球人们通用的一个计时概念；阿莫达瓦部落的人们不像我们这样受时间的负累，他们享受的是自由的生活。

Vocabulary

tribe n. 部落

entrenched  adj. 确定的，确立的

embed v. 把……嵌入

linguist  n. 语言学家

anthropologist n. 人类学家

convey v. 表达，传达

sibling n. 兄弟姐妹

Keys to the comprehension

1.       B 由第四段得知关键词language（...researching how their language conveys concepts like...)，linguist指语言学家，lingual为语言的前缀。

2.      C 由第四段for example上句可得，部落里的人没有年龄，根据生命所处阶段以及在部落中的地位更名字。

3.      D 由第四段得知，...only divisions of day and night and rainy and dry seasons...

4.      D 中心思想题，本文主要阐述了Amondawa这一部落对时间概念的缺失