GRE阅读练习每日一篇(四十四)_GRE阅读

GRE阅读练习每日一篇(四十四)

　　The ecology of the southwestern United States is similar in important respects to the ecology of alpine regions of Hawaii.

　　There are ocean currents that flow from the southwestern United States to Hawaii.

　　The plant species discovered in Hawaii must have traveled from the southwestern United States only very recently.

　　The plant species discovered in Hawaii reached there by attaching to the feathers of birds migrating from the southwestern United States.

　　The plant species discovered in Hawaii is especially well adapted to transport over long distances.

　　20. The passage supplies information for answering which of the following questions?

　　Why does successful long-distance dispersal of plant seeds require an equivalence between the ecology of the source area and that of the recipient area?

　　Why are more varieties of plant seeds adapted to external rather than to internal bird transport?

　　What varieties of plant seeds are birds that fly long distances most likely to swallow?

　　What is a reason for accepting the long-distance dispersal of plant seeds as an explanation for the origin of Hawaiian flora?

　　What evidence do biologists cite to argue that ocean and air currents are responsible for the transport of plant seeds to Hawaii?

　　A long-held view of the history of the English colonies that became the United States has been that England s policy toward these colonies before 1763 was dictated by commercial interests and that a change to a more imperial policy, dominated by expansionist militarist objectives, generated the tensions that ultimately led to the American Revolution. In a recent study, Stephen Saunders Webb has presented a formidable challenge to this view. According to Webb, England already had a military imperial policy for more than a century before the American Revolution. He sees Charles II, the English monarch between 1660 and 1685, as the proper successor of the Tudor monarchs of the sixteenth century and of Oliver Cromwell, all of whom were bent on extending centralized executive power over England s possessions through the use of what Webb calls garrison government. Garrison government allowed the colonists a legislative assembly, but real authority, in Webb s view, belonged to the colonial governor, who was appointed by the king and supported by the garrison, that is, by the local contingent of English troops under the colonial governor s command.