【有问必答】TPO阅读疑难杂症解答专帖

反衬

题目出处： TPO 4

题目原文：The particular symbolic significance of the cave paintings in southwestern France is more explicitly revealed, perhaps, by the results of a study conducted by researchers Patricia Rice and Ann Paterson. The data they present suggest that the animals portrayed in the cave paintings were mostly the ones that the painters preferred for meat and for materials such as hides. For example, wild cattle (bovines) and horses are portrayed more often than we would expect by chance, probably because they were larger and heavier (meatier) than other animals in the environment. In addition, the paintings mostly portray animals that the painters may have feared the most because of their size, speed, natural weapons such as tusks and horns, and the unpredictability of their behavior. That is, mammoths, bovines, and horses are portrayed more often than deer and reindeer. Thus, the paintings are consistent with the idea that the art is related to the importance of hunting in the economy of Upper Paleolithic people. Consistent with this idea, according to the investigators, is the fact that the art of the cultural period that followed the Upper Paleolithic also seems to reflect how people got their food. But in that period, when getting food no longer depended on hunting large game animals (because they were becoming extinct), the art ceased to focus on portrayals of animals.

题目选项：
11．According to paragraph 4, what change is evident in the art of the period following the Upper Paleolithic?
○This new art starts to depict small animals rather than large ones.
○This new art ceases to reflect the ways in which people obtained their food.
○This new art no longer consists mostly of representations of animals.
○This new art begins to show the importance of hunting to the economy.

题目答案：C

疑问所在: 我选D。原文中Thus, the paintings are consistent with the idea that the art is related to the importance of hunting in the economy of Upper Paleolithic people. Consistent with this idea, according to the investigators, is the fact that the art of the cultural period that followed the Upper Paleolithic also seems to reflect how people got their food.
D不是这句话的简化么?

-- by 会员 mikiluang (2010/8/23 0:08:51)

请同学再读读段落末句的文字。直接对应C

再想想D当中 begins什么意思。如果是begin的话，意味着以前是没有的。这和你定位的那句话中的also意思矛盾。

反衬

题目出处：tpo 8

题目原文：Paragraph 2 Outflow channels are probably relics of catastrophic flooding on Mars long ago. They appear only in equatorial regions and generally do not form extensive interconnected networks. Instead, they are probably the paths taken by huge volumes of water draining from the southern highlands into the northern plains. The onrushing water arising from these flash floods likely also formed the odd teardrop-shaped “islands” (resembling the miniature versions seen in the wet sand of our beaches at low tide) that have been found on the plains close to the ends of the outflow channels. Judging from the width and depth of the channels, the flow rates must have been truly enormous―perhaps as much as a hundred times greater than the 105 tons per second carried by the great Amazon river. Flooding shaped the outflow channels approximately 3 billion years ago, about the same times as the northern volcanic plains formed.

题目选项：5. In paragraph 2, why does the author include the information that 105 tons of water flow through the Amazon river per second?
○To emphasize the great size of the volume of water that seems to have flowed through Mars’ outflow channels
○To indicate data used by scientists to estimate how long ago Mars’ outflow channels were formed
○To argue that flash floods on Mars may have been powerful enough to cause tear-shaped “islands” to form
○To argue that the force of flood waters on Mars was powerful enough to shape the northern volcanic plains


题目答案：4

疑问所在：我选的1，没看出来是在强调volume啊~ 明明是在说速度哇~

-- by 会员 ctomoyo (2010/8/22 16:28:48)

答案就是第1个啊。 第一个没错。
原文也没有说速度啊。速度是你自己想的吧。原文说的是flow rates，并不是速度。
托福考的就是同义替换。但是同义替换并不意味着一定要一模一样。而且这个东西是否同义替换，不能用自己的先入为主的想法去代替原文的文字。

alicejingli

TPO14  第三篇

Pastoralism is a lifestyle in which economic activity is based primarily on livestock. Archaeological evidence suggests that by 3000 B.C., and perhaps even earlier, there had emerged on the steppes of Inner Eurasia the distinctive types of pastoralism that were to dominate the region’s history for several millennia. Here, the horse was already becoming the animal of prestige in many regions, though transportation and warfare that explains why Inner Eurasian pastoralism proved the most mobile and the most militaristic of all major forms of pastoralism. The emergence and spread of pastoralism had a profound impact on the history of Inner Eurasia, and also, indirectly, on the parts of Asia and Europe just outside this area. In particular, pastoralism favors a mobile lifestyle, and this mobility helps to explain the impact of pastoralist societies on this part of the world.

The mobility of pastoralist societies reflects their dependence on animal based foods. While agriculturalists rely on domesticated plants, pastoralists rely on domesticated animals. As a result, pastoralists, like carnivores in general, occupy a higher position on the food chain. All else being equal, this means they must food, clothing, and other necessities. So pastoralism is a more extensive lifeway than farming is. However, the larger the terrain used to support a group, the harder principles imply a strong tendency within pastoralist lifeways toward nomadism (a mobile lifestyle). As the archaeologist Roger Cribb puts it, “The greater the degree of pastoralism, the stronger the tendency toward nomadism.” A modern Turkic nomad interviewed by Cribb commented: “The more animals you have, the farther you have to move.”

Nomadism has further consequences. It means that pastoralist societies occupy and can influence very large territories. This is particularly true of horse mobile of all major forms of pastoralism. So, it is no accident that with the appearance of pastoralist societies there appear large areas that share similar cultural, ecological, and even linguistic features. By the late fourth millennium B.C., there is already evidence of large culture zones reaching from Eastern Europe to the western border of Mongolia. Perhaps the most striking sign of mobility is the fact that by the third millennium B.C., most pastoralists in this huge region spoke related languages ancestral to the modern Indo-European languages. The remarkable mobility and range of pastoral societies explain, in part, why so many linguists have argued that the Indo-European languages began their astonishing expansionist career not among farmers in Anatolia (present-day Turkey), but among early pastoralists from Inner Eurasia. Such theories imply that the Indo-European languages evolved not in Neolithic (10,000 to 3,000 B.C.) Anatolia, but among the foraging communities of the cultures in the region of the Don and Dnieper rivers which took up stock breeding and began to exploit the neighboring steppes.
Nomadism also subjects pastoralist communities to strict rules of portability. ■If you are constantly on the move, you cannot afford to accumulate large material surpluses. ■Such rules limit variations in accumulated material goods between pastoralist households (though they may also encourage a taste for portable goods of high value such as silks or jewelry). ■So, by and large, nomadism implies a high degree of self-sufficiency and inhibits the appearance of an extensive division of labor. ■Inequalities of wealth and rank certainly exist, and have probably existed in most pastoralist societies, but except in periods of military conquest, they are normally too slight to generate the stable, hereditary hierarchies that are usually implied by the use of the term class. Inequalities of gender have also existed in pastoralist societies, but they seem to have been softened by the absence of steep hierarchies of wealth in most communities, and also by the requirement that women acquire most of the skills of men, including, often, their military skills.（第十题定位）
谁能解释一下，为啥这道题为啥选B,
还有思路定位是在我划线那部分吗？还有是不是因为though后面那个解释比不上前面（BUT，文章省略了）的重要？
2. According to paragraph 1, what made it possible for Inner Eurasian pastoralism to become the most mobile and militaristic form of pastoralism?
? It involved the domestication of several types of animals
? It was based primarily on horses rather than on other animals.
? It borrowed and improved upon European ideas for mobility and warfare.
? It could be adapted to a wide variety of environments

5. According to paragraph 2, pastoralists tend to
? Prefer grazing their animals on agricultural lands
? Consume comparatively large amounts of food and clothing
? Avoid eating plant foods
? Move from place to place frequently
第五题为啥不能选B，我在文中找到定位（已经划线）了，可为啥还不对

9. According to paragraph 4, the fact that pastoralist communities are subject to “strict rules of portability” encourages such communities to
? Relocate less frequently than they would otherwise
? Have households that are more of less equal in wealth
? Become self-sufficient in the manufacture of silk and jewelry
? Share large material surpluses with neighboring communities
还有这道题我也定位到SUFFICIENCT了，但为啥不能选C，还有为啥选B

10. According to paragraph 4, all of the following are true of social inequality in pastoralist societies EXCEPT:
? It exists and has existed to some degree in most pastoral societies.
? It is most marked during periods of military conquest.
? It is expressed in the form of a rigid hierarchy based largely on heredity.
? It is usually too insignificant to be discussed in term of class differences.

还有这道题，我定位到这句话Inequalities of wealth and rank certainly exist, and have probably existed in most pastoralist societies, but except in periods of military conquest, they are normally too slight to generate the stable,我认为意思就是不平等不存在military conquest里面（因为这里有BUT表示前后意思相反），所以我认为B和原文不相符，所以选B，可为啥就错了？

alicejingli

TPO14  第二篇

Although southern Maya areas received more rainfall than northern areas, problems of water were paradoxicallymore severe in the wet south. While that made things hard for ancient Maya living in the south, it has also made things hard for modern archaeologists who have difficulty understanding why ancient droughts caused bigger problems in the wet south than in the dry north. The likely explanation is the an area of underground freshwater underlies the Yucatan Peninsula, but surface elevation increases from north to south, so that as one moves south the land surface lies increasingly higher above the water table. In the northern peninsula the elevation is sufficiently low that the ancient Maya were able to reach the water table at deep sinkholes, the Maya would have been able to get down to the water table by digging wells up to 75 feet (22 meters) deep. But much of the south lies too high above the water table for cenotes or well to karst, a porous sponge-like limestone terrain where rain straight into the ground and where little or no surface water remains available.
我想问这个第六题为啥选B，从哪定位的？谢谢
6. Which of the following statements about the availability of water in the Mayan homeland is supported by paragraph 3?
? The construction of wells was an uncommon practice in both the north and the south because it was too difficult to dig through the karst.
? In most areas in the north and the south, rainwater was absorbed directly into the porous karst.
? The water table was an important resource for agriculture in both the north and the south of the Yucatan Peninsula.
? The lack of surface water in both the north and the south was probably due to the fact that most of it was quickly used up for agricultural purposes.

alicejingli

Children and Advertising (TPO14)  第一篇
Young children are trusting of commercial advertisements in the media, and advertisers have sometimes been accused of taking advantage of this trusting outlook. The Independent Television Commission, regulator of television advertising in the United Kingdom, has criticized advertisers for "misleadingness"-creating a wrong impression either intentionally or unintentionally-in an effort to control advertisers' use of techniques that make it difficult for children to judge the true size, action, performance, or construction of a toy.
General concern about misleading tactics that advertisers employ is centered on the use of exaggeration. Consumer protection groups and parents believe that children are largely ill--equipped to recognize such techniques and that often exaggeration is used at the expense of product information. Claims such as "the best" or 'better than" can be subjective and misleading; even adults may be unsure as to their meaning. They represent the advertiser's opinions about the qualities of their products or brand and, as a consequence, are difficulty to verify Advertisers sometimes offset or counterbalance an exaggerated claim with a disclaimer-a qualification or condition on the claim. For example, the claim that breakfast cereal has a health benefit may be accompanied by the disclaimer "when part of a nutritionally balanced breakfast." However, research has shown that children often have difficulty understanding disclaimers: children may interpret the phrase "when part of a nutritionally balanced breakfast" to mean that the cereal is required as a necessary part of a balanced breakfast. The author George Comstock suggested that less than a quarter of children between the ages of six and eight years old understood standard disclaimers used in many toy advertisements and that disclaimers are more readily comprehended when presented in both audio and visual formats. Nevertheless, disclaimers are mainly presented in audio format only.
■Fantasy is one of the more common techniques in advertising that could possibly mislead a young audience. ■Child-oriented advertisements are more likely to include magic and fantasy than advertisements aimed at adults. ■In a content analysis of Canadian television, the author Stephen Kline observed that nearly all commercials for character toys featured fantasy play. ■Children have strong imaginations and the use of fantasy brings their ideas to life, but children may not be adept enough to realize that what they are viewing is unreal. Fantasy situations and settings are frequently used to attract children's attention, particularly in food advertising. Advertisements for breakfast cereals have, for many years, been found to be especially fond of fantasy techniques, with almost nine out of ten including such content. Generally, there is uncertainty as to whether very young children can distinguish between fantasy and reality in advertising. Certainly, rational appeals in advertising aimed at children are limited, as most advertisements use emotional and indirect appeals to psychological states or associations.
The use of celebrities such as singers and movie stars is common in advertising. The intention is for the positively perceived attributes of the celebrity to be transferred to the advertised product and for the two to become automatically linked in the audience's mind. In children's advertising, the ·celebrities" are often animated figures from popular cartoons. In the recent past, the role of celebrities in advertising to children has often been conflated with the concept of host selling Host selling involves blending advertisements with regular programming in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish one from the other. Host selling occurs, for example, when a children's show about a cartoon lion contains an ad in which the same lion promotes a breakfast cereal. The psychologist Dale Kunkel showed that the practice of host selling reduced children's ability to distinguish between advertising and program material. It was also found that older children responded more positively to products in host selling advertisements.
Regarding the appearance of celebrities in advertisements that do not involve host selling, the evidence is mixed. Researcher Charles Atkin found that children believe that the characters used to advertise breakfast cereals are knowledgeable about cereals, and children accept such characters as credible sources of nutritional information. This finding was even more marked for heavy viewers of television. In addition, children feel validated in their choice of a product when a celebrity endorses that product. A study of children in Hong Kong, however, found that the presence of celebrities in advertisements could negatively affect the children's perceptions of a product if the children did not like the celebrity in question
就是第13题，我想问这个题目的A选项错在那里？是不是在文章本身没有use audio and visual formats，只有audio，所以错？如果删除visual formats就对了？
Drag your answer choices to the spaces where they belong. To remove an answer choice, click on it to review the passage, click View Text
Advertisers sometimes use strategies that can mislead children.
Answer Choices
?   A :   Advertisements can be misleading to children when the advertisements use audio and visual formats that are especially appealing to children.

ivymm0301

题目出处：tpo 1

题目原文：
Groundwater (TPO1)
Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the “solid” ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles—sand grains and tiny pebbles—of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water’s upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cemented) sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place.█ But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces.█ It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry.█ The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.█
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment toanother, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held.

题目选项：
14. Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.
To review passage, Click View Text
Much of the ground is actually saturated with water.
●
●
●
Answer choices
? Sediments that hold water were spread by glaciers and are still spread by rivers and streams.
? Water is stored underground in beds of loose sand and gravel or in cemented sediment.
? The size of a saturated rock’s pores determines how much water it will retain when the rock is put in a dry place.
? Groundwater often remains underground for a long time before it emerges again.
? Like sandstone, basalt is a crystalline rock that is very porous.
? Beds of unconsolidated sediments are typically located at inland sites that were once underwater
题目答案：
A B C
疑问所在：
我想不明白怎么就选A了。。。。。。。。。。我觉得原文没有提到这点的啊！拜托了。。。。。。。

ctomoyo

题目出处：tpo-11

题目原文：13. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

In fact, it is the action and not the figure itself that is important.
Where would the sentence best fit?


题目选项：Paragraph 4：Apart from statues representing deities, kings, and named members of the elite that can be called formal, there is another group of three-dimensional representations that depicts generic figures, frequently servants, from the nonelite population. ■The function of these is quite different. ■Many are made to be put in the tombs of the elite in order to serve the tomb owners in the afterlife. ■Unlike formal statues that are limited to static poses of standing, sitting, and kneeling, these figures depict a wide range of actions, such as grinding grain, baking bread, producing pots, and making music, and they are shown in appropriate poses, bending and squatting as they carry out their tasks. ■

题目答案：4

疑问所在：我觉得放哪儿都不对。。请教为什么放最后啊~

反衬

题目出处：tpo 8

题目原文：Paragraph 2 Outflow channels are probably relics of catastrophic flooding on Mars long ago. They appear only in equatorial regions and generally do not form extensive interconnected networks. Instead, they are probably the paths taken by huge volumes of water draining from the southern highlands into the northern plains. The onrushing water arising from these flash floods likely also formed the odd teardrop-shaped “islands” (resembling the miniature versions seen in the wet sand of our beaches at low tide) that have been found on the plains close to the ends of the outflow channels. Judging from the width and depth of the channels, the flow rates must have been truly enormous―perhaps as much as a hundred times greater than the 105 tons per second carried by the great Amazon river. Flooding shaped the outflow channels approximately 3 billion years ago, about the same times as the northern volcanic plains formed.

题目选项：5. In paragraph 2, why does the author include the information that 105 tons of water flow through the Amazon river per second?
○To emphasize the great size of the volume of water that seems to have flowed through Mars’ outflow channels
○To indicate data used by scientists to estimate how long ago Mars’ outflow channels were formed
○To argue that flash floods on Mars may have been powerful enough to cause tear-shaped “islands” to form
○To argue that the force of flood waters on Mars was powerful enough to shape the northern volcanic plains


题目答案：4

疑问所在：我选的1，没看出来是在强调volume啊~ 明明是在说速度哇~

-- by 会员 ctomoyo (2010/8/22 16:28:48)

这道题就是选第一个啊

反衬

题目出处：tpo-11

题目原文：13. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

In fact, it is the action and not the figure itself that is important.
Where would the sentence best fit?


题目选项：Paragraph 4：Apart from statues representing deities, kings, and named members of the elite that can be called formal, there is another group of three-dimensional representations that depicts generic figures, frequently servants, from the nonelite population. ■The function of these is quite different. ■Many are made to be put in the tombs of the elite in order to serve the tomb owners in the afterlife. ■Unlike formal statues that are limited to static poses of standing, sitting, and kneeling, these figures depict a wide range of actions, such as grinding grain, baking bread, producing pots, and making music, and they are shown in appropriate poses, bending and squatting as they carry out their tasks. ■

题目答案：4

疑问所在：我觉得放哪儿都不对。。请教为什么放最后啊~

-- by 会员 ctomoyo (2010/9/4 9:28:28)

这道题考简单逻辑。
如果你要在两者之间进行选择，必须先提到两者。
所以在此之前必须先提到 action 和figure。满足这个条件的就只有第四个了

反衬

题目出处：tpo 1

题目原文：
Groundwater (TPO1)
Groundwater is the word used to describe water that saturates the ground, filling all the available spaces. By far the most abundant type of groundwater is meteoric water; this is the groundwater that circulates as part of the water cycle. Ordinary meteoric water is water that has soaked into the ground from the surface, from precipitation (rain and snow) and from lakes and streams. There it remains, sometimes for long periods, before emerging at the surface again. At first thought it seems incredible that there can be enough space in the “solid” ground underfoot to hold all this water.
The necessary space is there, however, in many forms. The commonest spaces are those among the particles—sand grains and tiny pebbles—of loose, unconsolidated sand and gravel. Beds of this material, out of sight beneath the soil, are common. They are found wherever fast rivers carrying loads of coarse sediment once flowed. For example, as the great ice sheets that covered North America during the last ice age steadily melted away, huge volumes of water flowed from them. The water was always laden with pebbles, gravel, and sand, known as glacial outwash, that was deposited as the flow slowed down.
The same thing happens to this day, though on a smaller scale, wherever a sediment-laden river or stream emerges from a mountain valley onto relatively flat land, dropping its load as the current slows: the water usually spreads out fanwise, depositing the sediment in the form of a smooth, fan-shaped slope. Sediments are also dropped where a river slows on entering a lake or the sea, the deposited sediments are on a lake floor or the seafloor at first, but will be located inland at some future date, when the sea level falls or the land rises; such beds are sometimes thousands of meters thick.
In lowland country almost any spot on the ground may overlie what was once the bed of a river that has since become buried by soil; if they are now below the water’s upper surface (the water table), the gravels and sands of the former riverbed, and its sandbars, will be saturated with groundwater.
So much for unconsolidated sediments. Consolidated (or cemented) sediments, too, contain millions of minute water-holding pores. This is because the gaps among the original grains are often not totally plugged with cementing chemicals; also, parts of the original grains may become dissolved by percolating groundwater, either while consolidation is taking place or at any time afterwards. The result is that sandstone, for example, can be as porous as the loose sand from which it was formed.
Thus a proportion of the total volume of any sediment, loose or cemented, consists of empty space. Most crystalline rocks are much more solid; a common exception is basalt, a form of solidified volcanic lava, which is sometimes full of tiny bubbles that make it very porous.
The proportion of empty space in a rock is known as its porosity. But note that porosity is not the same as permeability, which measures the ease with which water can flow through a material; this depends on the sizes of the individual cavities and the crevices linking them.
Much of the water in a sample of water-saturated sediment or rock will drain from it if the sample is put in a suitable dry place.█ But some will remain, clinging to all solid surfaces.█ It is held there by the force of surface tension without which water would drain instantly from any wet surface, leaving it totally dry.█ The total volume of water in the saturated sample must therefore be thought of as consisting of water that can, and water that cannot, drain away.█
The relative amount of these two kinds of water varies greatly from one kind of rock or sediment toanother, even though their porosities may be the same. What happens depends on pore size. If the pores are large, the water in them will exist as drops too heavy for surface tension to hold, and it will drain away; but if the pores are small enough, the water in them will exist as thin films, too light to overcome the force of surface tension holding them in place; then the water will be firmly held.

题目选项：
14. Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.
To review passage, Click View Text
Much of the ground is actually saturated with water.
●
●
●
Answer choices
? Sediments that hold water were spread by glaciers and are still spread by rivers and streams.
? Water is stored underground in beds of loose sand and gravel or in cemented sediment.
? The size of a saturated rock’s pores determines how much water it will retain when the rock is put in a dry place.
? Groundwater often remains underground for a long time before it emerges again.
? Like sandstone, basalt is a crystalline rock that is very porous.
? Beds of unconsolidated sediments are typically located at inland sites that were once underwater
题目答案：
A B C
疑问所在：
我想不明白怎么就选A了。。。。。。。。。。我觉得原文没有提到这点的啊！拜托了。。。。。。。

-- by 会员 ivymm0301 (2010/8/30 21:00:14)

第三段开头加上第二段的一部分。