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托福TPO20听力Conversation1文本+题目+答案解析

托福TPO20听力Conversation1文本+题目+答案解析

为了帮助大家高效备考托福,为大家带来托福TPO20听力Conversation1文本+题目+答案解析,希望对大家备考有所帮助。

托福TPO20听力Conversation1文本 Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and a library employee. Student: Excuse me, I received a letter that I am supposed to return a book that I checked out back in September, it’s called Modern Social Problems. But I am writing my senior thesis, so I thought I was allowed to keep the book for the whole academic year. Librarian: So you signed up for extended borrowing privileges? Student: Yeah. Librarian: And we are still asking you to bring the book back? Student: Uh-huh. Do I really have to? Librarian: Well, let me check the computer. The title was ... Modern Social Problems? Student: Yeah. Librarian: Eh... Ok, yeah. It’s been recalled. You can keep it all year as long as no one else requests it, but someone else has, it looks like one of the professors in the sociology department. So you have to bring it back. You can check it out again when it is returned in a couple of weeks. Student: What if the person renews it? And I really need it right now. Librarian: All of it? Or is there a certain section or chapter you are working with? Student: Well, there’s one chapter in particular I am working with, but why? Librarian: Well, we normally don’t do this, but because of the circumstances we can photocopy up to one chapter for you. Why don’t you do that for the one you are working with right now? And by the time you need the rest of the book, maybe it’ll have been returned. Student: Oh, that would be great. Librarian: Do you have it with you? Student: Eh... no, it’s in my dorm room. These are books I want to check out today. Is it OK if I bring that one by in a couple of days? Librarian: Actually, the due day is tomorrow. After that, there’ll be a two dollar per day fine. But you need to return it today if you want to check out any books today. That’s our policy. Student: Oh, I see. Librarian: Yeah, not a lot of people realize that. In fact, every semester we get a few students who would have their borrowing privileges suspended completely because they haven’t returned books.They are allowed to use books only in the library. They are not allowed to check anything out because of unreturned books. Student: That’s not good. I guess I should head back to the dorm right now. Librarian: But before you go, what you should do is fill out a form requesting the book back in two weeks. Then the person who requested it won’t be able to renew it. You’ll get it back quickly. Student: I’ll do that right now. 托福TPO20听力Conversation1题目 1.Why does the man go to talk to the woman? A. To find out if he can get extended borrowing privileges B. To find out if he needs to immediately return a book he borrowed C. To find out why he has to pay a library fine D. To find out why his borrowing privileges have been suspended 2.What will the man probably do today? (2 answers) A. Get photocopies of a book chapter B. Find out who requested his book C. Borrow additional books.。

托福听力TPO20原文 Lecture 3-智课教育旗下智课教育

托福听力TPO20原文 Lecture 3-智课教育旗下智课教育

智 课 网 托 福 备 考 资 料托福听力TPO20原文 Lecture 3-智课教育旗下智课教育下面就让小编来为大家介绍一下托福听力TPO20原文中Lecture 3的文本内容吧,大家要好好把握,这些都是非常有价值的材料,同时,大家也可以登录智课教育论坛进行TPO练习辅导,希望能够给准备托福听力的同学带来帮助。

TPO20 Lecture3 LiteratureProfessor:All right, so now we’ve talked about folk legends and seen that their ... one of their key features isthere’s usually some real history behind them. They are often about real people, so you can identify with the characters, and that’s what engages us in them. The particular stories might not be true and some of the characters or events might be made up. But there’s still a sense that the story could have been true since it is about a real person. That’s distinct contrast from the other main branch of popular storytelling, which is folk tales. Folk tales are imaginative stories that ... um ... like folk legends, they have been passed down orally, from storyteller to storyteller for ... since ancient times. But with folk tales you don’t ever really get the sense that the story might have been true. They are purely imaginative and so quite revealing, I think anyway, about the culture and the connection between folk tales and culture, which we’ll talk about.But first let’s go over the various types of folk tale and focus specifically on Norwegian folk tales since they illustrate the variety pretty well. There are in general three main types of Norwegian folk tales. One is animal stories, where animals are the main characters. They can be wild animals or domestic, and a lot of times they can talk and behave like humans, but at the same time, they retain their animal characteristics too. They tend to involve animals like bears, wolves and foxes. The point of these stories, their, their internal objectives, so the speak, isusually to explain some feature of the animal, how it arose. So there’s one about a fox who fools a bear into going ice fishing with his tail. When the bear puts his tail into the water through a hole in the ice, to try and catch a fish, the ice freezes around it, and he ends up pulling his tail off. So that’s why bears to this day have such short tails. The second category of Norwegian folk tale is the supernatural. Eh ... stories about giants and dragons and trolls, and humans with supernatural powers or gifts, like invisibility cloaks. Or where people are turned into animals and back again into a person, those are called transformation stories.There’s a well-known Norwegian supernatural folk tale, a transformation story called East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which we’ll read. It involves a prince who is a white bear by night and a human by day. And he lives in the castle that’s east of the Sun and west of the Moon, which the heroine in the story has to try to find. Besides being a good example of a transformation story, this one also has a lot of the common things that tend to show up in folk tales. You will find the standard opening, ‘once upon a time ... ’ . And it has stock characters like a prince, and a poor but beautiful peasant girl, she is the heroine I mentioned. And ... um ... it has a very conventional form. So no more than two characters are involved in any one scene. And it has a happy ending. And it’s ... the story is presented as though ... well, even though a lot of the actions that occurred are pretty fantastic, so you’d never think of it as realistic. The characters still act like ... they resemble real people. They are not real or even based on historical figures. But you might have a supernatural story involving a king, and he’d act like you’d expect a Norwegian king to act. OK. The third main kind of folk tale is the comical story. We’ll say more later about these, but for now, just be aware of the category and that they can contain supernatural aspects, but they are usually moreplayful and amusing overall than supernatural stories.Now, as I said, traditionally, folk tales were just passed down orally. Each generation of storytellers had their own style of telling a story. But ... um ... in Norway, before the 19th century, folk tales were just for kids. They weren’t seen as worthy of analysis or academic attention. But this changed when the romantic movement spread throughout Europe in the mid-19th century. Romantics looked at folk tales as sort of a reflection of the soul of the people. So there was something distinctly Norwegian in folk tales from Norway. And there was renewed pride in the literature and art forms of individual countries. As a result, the first collection of Norwegian folk tales is published in 1852. And there have been many new editions published since then. For the people of Norway, these stories are now an important part of what it means to be Norwegian.教授:好的,我们讨论了民间传奇的本质,以及民间传说的主要特征,即每一个传奇的背后,都有一个真实的故事作为背景。

TPO 20 听力原文

TPO 20 听力原文

TPO 20 听力原文TPO 20 Section1 Conversation1-Student&LibrarianNarrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and a library employee.Student: Excuse me, I received a letter that I am supposed to return a book that I checked out back in September, it‟s called Modern So cial Problems. But I am writing my senior thesis, so I thought I was allowed to keep the book for the whole academic year.Librarian: So you signed up for extended borrowing privileges?Student: Yeah.Librarian: And we are still asking you to bring the book back?Student: Uh-huh. Do I really have to?Librarian: Well, let me check the computer. The title was ... Modern Social Problems?Student: Yeah.Librarian: Eh... Ok, yeah. It‟s been recalled. You can keep it all year as long as no one else requests it, but someone else has, it looks like one of the professors in the sociology department. So you have to bring it back. You can check it out again when it is returned in a couple of weeks.Student: What if the person renews it? And I really need it right now.Librarian: All of it? Or is there a certain section or chapter you are working with?Student: Well, there‟s one chapter in particular I am working with, but why?Librarian: Well, we normally don‟t do this, but because of the circumstances we can photocopy up to one chapter for you. Why don‟t you do that for the one you are working with right now? And by the time you need the rest of the book, maybe it‟ll have been returned.Student: Oh, that would be great.Librarian: Do you have it with you?Student: Eh... no, it‟s in my dorm room. These are books I want to check out today. Is it OK if I bring that one by in a couple of days?Librarian: Actually, the due day is tomorrow. After that, there‟ll be a two dollar per day fine. But you need to return it today if you want to check out any books today. That‟s our policy.Student: Oh, I see.Librarian: Yeah, not a lot of people realize that. In fact, every semester we get a few students who would have their borrowing privileges suspended completely because they haven‟t returned books.They are allowed to use books only in the library. They are not allowed to check anything out because of unreturned books.Student: That‟s not good. I guess I should head back to the d orm right now.Librarian: But before you go, what you should do is fill out a form requesting the book back in two weeks.Then the person who requested it won‟t be able to renew it. You‟ll get it back quickly.Student: I‟ll do that right now.TPO20 Lecture1-Linguistics (Gricean Maxims)Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a linguistics class.Professor: Ok, the conventions or assumptions that govern conversation, these may vary from one culture to another, but basically, for people to communicate, there is a ... they have to follow certain rules. Like if I am talking with you and I start saying things that are not true, if you can‟t tell when I am lying and when I am telling the truth, well, we are not going to have a very satisfactory conversation, are we? Why? Because it violates one of the Gricean Maxims, that‟s a set of rules or maxims a philosopher name H.P .Grice came up with in 1970s. One of these Gricean Maxims is... well, I‟ve already given you a hint.Student: Oh, you just can‟t go around telling lies.Professor: Right, or as Grice put it, “Do not say what you believe to be false.” That‟s one of Grice‟s Maxims of Quality as he called it. So that‟s pretty obvious. But there are others just as important. Like, eh... suppose you wo uld ask me what time it was and I replied …my sister just got married‟ , what would you think? Student: You are not really answering my question.Professor: No, I am not, am I? There is no connection at all, which feels wrong because you generally expect to find one. So one important maxim is simply: be relevant. And using the so-called Maxim of Relevance we can infer things as well, or rather the speaker can imply things and the listener can make inferences. For instance, suppose you say you would really love to have a cup of coffee right now, and I say …there‟s a shop around the corner‟ . Now, what can you infer from what I said?Student: Well, the shop sells coffee for one thing.Professor: Right, and that I believe it is open now. Because if I won‟t implying those things, my response would not be relevant. It‟d have no connection with what you said before. But according to the maxim, my response should be relevant to your statement, meaning, we should assume some connection between the statement and the response. And this maxim of relevance is quite efficient to use. Even if I don‟t spell out all the details, you can still make some useful logical inferences, namely, the shop is open and it sells coffee. If we actually have to explain all these details, conversations would move along pretty slowly, wouldn‟t they?OK, then there‟s the maxims of manner, including things like be clear, and avoid ambiguity.And another more interesting maxims is one of the so-called maxims of quantity, quantities of information, that is. It says, to give as much as is required in the situation. So suppose you asked me what I did yesterday and I say …I went to the Art Museum.‟ Y ou would likely infer that I saw some works of art. Suppose, though, that I did not go inside the museum, I just walked up to it then left. Then I violated the quantity maxim by not giving enough information. So you can see how important implications are to our ability to carry on a conversation.But there are times when people will violate these maxims on purpose. Let‟s say a boss is asked to write a letter of recommendation for a former employee seeking an engineering job. The letter he writes is quite brief. Something like, uh, Mr. X is polite and always dresses quite neatly. So what does this really mean? Student: Oh, I see. By not mentioning any important qualities related to the job, the boss is ... like, implying that this is best that can be said about Mr. X that he is really not qualified.Professor: Exactly. It‟s a written letter not a conversation, but the principle is the same. The boss is convey ing a negative impression of Mr. X without actually saying negative about him. So, by violating the maxims, we ...eh... but ... it can be a way to be subtle or polite, or to convey humor through sarcasm or irony.Sometimes though people will violate maxims for another purpose: to deceive. Now, can you imagine who might do such a thing?Student: Some politicians.Student: Or advertisers.Professor: Right. Anyone who may see an advantage in implying certain things that are untrue without explicitly saying something untrue. They think, hey, don‟t blame us if our audience happens to draw inferences that are simply not true. So next time you see an advertisement saying some product could be up to 20% more effective, think of these maxims of quantity and relevance, and ask yourself what inferences you are being led to draw. Think, more effective than what exactly?And why do they use those little phrases …could be‟ and …up to‟? These claims give us a lot less information than they seem to.TPO 20 Lecture 2-Environmental Science (Interglacial Periods)Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an environmental science class.Professor: I‟d like to take you back about 11 thousand years ago when Earth entered the latest interglacial period. Interglacial periods are, typically periods of time between Ice Ages, when the climate warms, and the glacial ice retreats for a time, before things cool off again and another Ice Age begins. And for over the past several million years, Earth‟s sort of default climate has actually been Ice Age, but we have experiencedperiodic regular thaws, and the last one, the one we are in now, started about 11 thousand years ago.Now, the typical pattern for an interglacial period, and we have studied several, is that the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane gas actually reaches it... its peak, that is, there is the most carbon dioxide and methane gas, uh, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere just after the beginning of the interglacial period. And then, for reasons which are not entirely clear, the concentration of greenhouse gases gradually goes down. Now, the climate continues to warm for a while because there is a lag effect. But uh, gradually as the concentration of greenhouse gases goes down, Earth starts to cool again, and eventually you slip back into an Ice Age.Um, however, for the latest interglacial period, the one we are in now, this pattern did not hold, that is, the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane dipped1 a little bit after, uh, uh, after speaking at the beginning, near the beginning of the interglacial period, but then it began to rise again. Um ... What was different about this interglacial period than the other ones?Well, one of the big differences is human activity. People began to raise crops and animals for food instead of hunting for them. This is the agricultural revolution. And it began to happen in the earliest stages about 11 thousand years ago.Now, scientists have tended to regard ... the ... uh ... agricultural revolution as a beneficiary of the ... uh ... fortuitous shift in climate. However, some new theories of climate, new theorists of climate have proposed that perhaps humanity was having an effect on the climate as far back as the beginnings of the agricultural revolution. When you grow crops and uh, pasture your animals, one of the things you do is you cut down the forests. If you cut down the forests, when you burn the trees for fuel and don‟t replace them with other trees, or when you just leave them to rot and don‟t allow other trees to grow, you end up with a lot more carbon in the form of carbon dioxide getting into the atmosphere.Um ... another gas associated with the spread of agriculture is methane. Methane forms in large concentration above wetlands, and as it turns out, the cultivation of certain grains creates vast areas of artificial wetlands, and probably drastically increases the amount of methane getting into the atmosphere, over and above what would be there.So, um... agriculture, the ... the spread of agriculture, you know we are talking over thousands of years, um... but this could very well had a profound effect on the composition of Earth‟s atmosphere. It‟s kind of ironic to think that absent that effect, it maybe that we would be heading into an Ice Age again. In fact, back in the 1970s, a lot of theorists were predicting that, you know, the cl imate would start to cool and we‟d slowly enter into the new Ice Age. And then they were puzzled as to why it didn‟t seem to be happening.Umm... now, what are the implications for the future? Well, um... it is a little tricky. I mean, you could say, well, here is an example of ... um ... human activity, the agricultural revolution which actually was beneficial, we altered the climate for the better , perhaps, by preventing an Ice Age.But then industrialization, of course, has drastically increased the amount of carbon dioxide that humans are putting into the atmosphere, the burning of fossil fuels tends to put a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. Um... so we are entering into uncharted territory now, in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide, the concentrations of carbon dioxide that are now being put into the atmosphere as a result of industrialization and the use of fossil fuels.TPO 20 Section 2 Conversation 2 –Student & ProfessorNarrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.Student: Professor Jennings, I hope I am not interrupting, but you wanted to see me?Professor: Oh, hello, Suzane. Yes, yes, come right in. How are you doing?Student: All right.Professor: Well, good. The reason I wanted to talk to you was that while you were presenting you linguistics project in class the other day, well, you know, I was thinking you are a perfect candidate for the dean‟s undergraduate research fund.Student: Um ... Professor, I am really sure what the... um ... dean ....Professor: Undergraduate research fund is ... It is a mouthful I suppose. OK. Here‟s the thing. Every year the school has a pool of money to fund a number of research projects of undergraduate students.Because as you can imagine, indepth research often requires monetary support.Student: I would like to expand on my research.Professor: Good. First a panel of professors reviews the applications for the grant. And then they decide which project should be funded. The alloted money could be used for travel expenses, to attend a conference for example, or things like supplies, research equipment, resources that are necessary to conduct the research. Student I: see.Professor: Right. And I think you should apply for this grant. Your project is definitely eligible. And you can expand it if you have the necessary resources. So, does it sound like something you would be interested in? Student: Oh, yeah, sounds great. I thought the topic I work on was very interesting, and it is certainly relevant to my linguistics major . I assume it will also look good when I try to get into graduate school. But how do I apply for the grant?Professor: It is pretty straightforward. A brief description of your proposed project, and an estimated budget. How much you need to spend and what you intend to spend it on. Also a glowing letter of recommendation from a linguistics professor wouldn‟t hurt, which I‟d be more than happy to write up for you.Student: OK. Cool. I am pretty clear on how to carry out my project, but I am not sure where I can find more information on the subject.Professor: Well, I have already thought of that. There‟s this private library at a university in Boston. By the way, because I graduated from that school, I can get you access to it, no problem. You see, the library houses lots of unpublished documents that are relevant to your topic.Student: So I can put that on the application for the grant, that I plan on using material from that library for my research and figure a trip to Boston into my budget?Professor: Exactly. I really think judging from your work in class, and the relevance and clarity of this project, you really have a good chance of getting the funding.Student: OK. I‟ll definitely apply then.Professor: The sooner the better . It is due in a few weeks. Gook Luck! And I‟ll get that letter written up right away.TPO 20 Lecture 3-Literature (Folktales)Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a literature class.Professor: All right, so now we‟ve talked about folk legends and seen that their ... one of their key features is there‟s usually some real history behind them. They are often about real people, so you ca n identify with the characters, and that‟s what engages us in them. The particular stories might not be true and some of the characters or events might be made up. But there‟s still a sense that the story could have been true since it is about a real perso n. That‟s distinct contrast from the other main branch of popular storytelling, which is folk tales.Folk tales are imaginative stories that ... um ... like folk legends, they have been passed down orally, from storyteller to storyteller for ... since an cient times. But with folk tales you don‟t ever really get the sense that the story might have been true. They are purely imaginative and so quite revealing, I think anyway, about the culture and the connection between folk tales and culture, which we‟ll t alk about.But first let‟s go over the various types of folk tale and focus specifically on Norwegian folk tales since they illustrate the variety pretty well. There are in general three main types of Norwegian folk tales.One is animal stories, where animals are the main characters. They can be wild animals or domestic, and a lot of times they can talk and behave like humans, but at the same time, they retain their animal characteristics too. They tend to involve animals like bears, wolves and foxes.The point of these stories, their, their internal objectives, so the speak, is usually to explain some feature of the animal, how it arose. So there‟s one about a fox who fools a bear into going ice fishing with his tail.When the bear puts his tail into the water through a hole in the ice, to try and catch a fish, the ice freezes around it, and he ends up pulling his tail off. So that‟s why bears to this day have such short tails.The second category of Norwegian folk tale is the supernatural. Eh ... stories about giants and dragons and trolls, and humans with supernatural powers or gifts, like invisibility cloaks. Or where people are turned into animals and back again into a person, those are called transformation stories.There‟s a well-known Norwegian supernatural folk tale, a transformation story called East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which we‟ll read. It involves a prince who is a white bear by night and a human by day. And he lives in the castle that‟s east of the Sun and west of the Moon, whi ch the heroine in the story has to try to find. Besides being a good example of a transformation story, this one also has a lot of the common things that tend to show up in folk tales. You will find the standard opening, …once upon a time ... ‟ . And it has stock characters like a prince, and a poor but beautiful peasant girl, she is the heroine I mentioned. And ... um ... it has a very conventional form. So no more than two characters are involved in any one scene. And it has a happy ending.And it‟s ... the story is presented as though ... well, even though a lot of the actions that occurred are pretty fantastic, so you‟d never think of it as realistic. The characters still act like ... they resemble real people. They are not real or even based on historical figures. But you might have a supernatural story involving a king, and he‟d act like you‟d expect a Norwegian king to act.OK. The third main kind of folk tale is the comical story. We‟ll say more later about these, but for now, just be aware of the category and that they can contain supernatural aspects, but they are usually more playful and amusing overall than supernatural stories.Now, as I said, traditionally, folk tales were just passed down orally. Each generation of storytellers had their own style of telling a story. But ... um ... in Norway, before the 19th century, folk tales were just for kids. They weren‟t seen as worthy of analysis or academic attention. But this changed when the romantic movement spread throughout Europe in the mid-19th century.Romantics looked at folk tales as sort of a reflection of the soul of the people. So there was something distinctly Norwegian in folk tales from Norway. And there was renewed pride in the literature and art forms of individual countries. As a result, the first collection of Norwegian folk tales is published in 1852. And there have been many new editions published since then. For the people of Norway, these stories are now an important part of what it means to be Norwegian.TPO 20 Lecture 4 - Biology (Snowshoe Hare)Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.Professor: Now, James, you said you had been to the State of Maine, right?Student: Yeah, actually I lived in western Maine until I was about sixteen.Professor: Great. So why don‟t you tell everybody what is like there in the winter?Student: The winter? Well, it‟s cold. And there‟s lots of snow, you wouldn‟t believe how much snow we used to get.Professor: Actually I would. I did field research up there a couple of winters. And it really is an incredible environment. And to survive in that sort of environment, animals have to adapt, to evolve in response to their surroundings. As you recall, an adaptation is any feature, um... physical or behavioral feature of a species that helps it survive and reproduce. And in adapting to extreme climates, like Maine in the winter time, animals can evolve in pretty interesting ways. Take, for example, the snowshoe hare.Ok, the snowshoe hare, and of course, that‟s H-A-R-E, like a rabbit. Although I probably should mention that technically a hare is not exactly the same as a rabbit, even though it is very similar.The primary di fference is that a rabbit‟s young are born blind and without fu r, while a hare‟s babies are born with a full coat and able to see.Now, the snowshoe hare, tell me, what sort of adaptations do you think it has developed that help it survive the M aine winters? I‟ll give you a hint. Food isn‟t an issue. The hare actually has abundant food in the small twigs it finds.Student: Well, I don‟t know. I mean, I know we used to try to look for these rabbits, eh... hares, when we went hiking in the winter, but it was often hard to find them in the snow.Professor: Yes. That‟s exactly right. The major concern of the snowshoe hare in the winter is predators. And now that includes humans. So one of its adaptations is basically camouflage. In other words, its coat, its fur , turns from brown in the summer to white in the winter , which makes it harder for the hare‟s predators to see it against the white snow.Student: Yeah, but I could swear I remembered seeing rabbits in the snow a couple of times, I means hares, that were brown.Professor: Well, you may very well have. Timing is really important, but the snowshoe hare doesn‟t always get it exactly right. Its chances for survival are best if it turns white about the time of the first snowfall. And it‟s the amount of daylight that triggers the changing of the hare‟s coat. As the days get shorter , that is, as the Sun is up for a shorter and shorter time each day, the snowshoe hare starts growing white fur and shedding its brown fur . The hare does a pretty good job with its timing, but sometimes when there‟s a really early or late snow, it stands out. Plus, it takes about a month for the snowshoe hare‟s coat to completely change color . So if there‟s a particularly early snowfall, it‟s very likely that the hare‟s fur would not yet be totally white. And that would make this a particularly dangerous time for the hare.OK. What else? Other adaptations? Susan?Student: Well, it‟s called the snowshoe hare, so are its feet somehow protect it from the cold?Professor: Well, this animal‟s name does have to do with an adaptation of its feet. Uh... though, not like it has warm furry boots or something to keep its feet from getting cold. You‟ve probably never needed to wear snowshoes. But, well, snowshoes are not like thick furry shoes designed to keep the feet warm, they are actually quite thin, but very wide. What they do is spread out the weight of the foot coming down on the snow. See, the problem with walking on snow is that you sink in with every step. But with snowshoes, you don‟t sink in, you walk on top of the snow. It makes walking through the Maine countryside in the winter much easier.Anyway, the snowshoe hare has an adaptation that plays on the same idea. It has hind feet that act like snowshoes. I mean, it‟s paws are wide and they allow the hare to hop and run just at the surface of deep snow. And this is a huge advantage for the snowshoe hare since by contrast, the feet of its predators usually sink right down into the snow.Now, another advantage related to this is that unlike many animals in winter, snowshoe hares can stay lean and light weight. They accumulate essentially no body fat. Can anyone guess why this is so? Student: They don‟t eat very much?Professor: Well, yes. But not because the re isn‟t enough food around. It‟s because, like I said, food is almost always within reach, and they don‟t have to store up a lot of food energy for the harsh winters.。

tpo20 综合写作示例

tpo20 综合写作示例

To present critics of the "let it burn" policy, the passage talks about three damage caused by the Yellowstone fires.However, the listening refutes that the policy is a good one because forest fire is one part of the nature process and is creative rather than damage.*除了列举3点措施来解决什么问题之外,其余的列举原因或列举危害/益处的文章,首段写其观点而不是陈述“列举内容”First, the professor argues that the plants in Yellowstone actually became more diverse.The fires, while damaged the original vegetation, could provide suitable growing conditions for many new plants.Since the original plants were cleared, there were many new places.For example,small plants thrive because they can get enough spaces to grow when bigger trees have disappeared.Second, although the writer claims that the yellowstone fires impacts wildlife and their habitats as well as the food chain, the professor challenges that the fires makes new opportunities for wildlife. She says that newly colonized plants offer new food for small animals to thrive, resulting in the thriving of their predator. Thus, the food chain will recover and even be stronger.Third, the writer claims that the damage caused by the Yellowstone fires will induce the tourist attraction and in result, make negative consequences for the local economy. But the professor argues incontrast, the tourist keep visiting the yellowstone park after the fires to see some scenes that are totally different and never seen .。

托福TPO20阅读Passage3原文文本+题目+答案解析

托福TPO20阅读Passage3原文文本+题目+答案解析
¡¡¡¡Petrifaction may also involve a simultaneous exchange of the original substance of a dead plant or animal with mineral matter of a different composition. This process is termed " replacement" because solutions have dissolved the original material and replaced it with an equal volume of the new substance. Replacement can be a marvelously precise process, so that details of shell ornamentation, tree rings in wood, and
¡¡¡¡When one considers the many ways by which organisms are completely destroyed after death, it is remarkable that fossils are as common as they are. Attack by scavengers and bacteria, chemical decay, and destruction by erosion and other geologic agencies make the odds against preservation very high. However, the chances of escaping complete destruction are vastly improved if the organism happens to have a mineralized skeleton and dies in a place where it can be quickly buried by sediment. Both of these conditions are often found on the ocean floors, where shelled invertebrates (organisms without spines) flourish and are covered by the continuous rain of sedimentary particles. Although most fossils are found in marine sedimentary rocks, they also are found in terrestrial deposits left by streams and lakes. On occasion, animals and plants have been preserved after becoming immersed in tar or quicksand, trapped in ice or lava flows, or engulfed by rapid falls of volcanic ash.

TPO综合写作-阅读听力文本(1-23)

TPO综合写作-阅读听力文本(1-23)

TPO(1-23)综合写作阅读听力原文TPO1ReadingIn the United States, employees typically work five days a week for eight hours each day. However, many employees want to work a four-day week and are willing to accept less pay in order to do so. A mandatory policy requiring companies to offer their employees the option of working a four-day workweek for four-fifths (80 percent) of their normal pay would benefit the economy as a whole as well as the individual companies and the employees who decided to take the option. The shortened workweek would increase company profits because employees would feel more rested and alert, and as a result, they would make fewer costly errors in their work. Hiring more staff to ensure that the same amount of work would be accomplished would not result in additional payroll costs because four-day employees would only be paid 80 percent of the normal rate. In the end, companies would have fewer overworked and error-prone employees for the same money, which would increase company profits. For the country as a whole, one of the primary benefits of offering this option to employees is that it would reduce unemployment rates. If many full-time employees started working fewer hours, some of their workload would have to be shifted to others. Thus, for every four employees who went on an 80 percent week, a new employee could be hired at the 80 percent rate. Finally, the option of a four-day workweek would be better for individual employees. Employees who could afford a lower salary in exchange for more free time could improve the quality of their lives by spending the extra time with their families, pursuing private interests, or enjoying leisure activities.ListeningProfessorOffering employees the option of a four-day workweek won't affect the company profits, economic conditions or the lives of employees in the ways the reading suggests.First, offering a four-day workweek will probably force companies to spend more, possibly a lot more. Adding new workers means putting much more money into providing training and medical benefits. Remember the costs of things like health benefits can be the same whether an employee works four days or five. And having more employees also requires more office space and more computers. These additional costs would quickly cut into company profits.Second, with respect to overall employment, it doesn't follow that once some employees choose a four-day workweek, many more jobs will become available. Hiring new workers is costly, as I argued a moment ago. And companies have other options. They might just choose to ask their employees to work overtime to make up the difference. Worse, companies might raise expectations. They might start to expect that their four-day employees can do the same amount of work they used to do in five days. If this happens, then no additional jobs will be created and current jobs will become more unpleasant.Finally, while a four-day workweek offers employees more free time to invest in their personal lives, it also presents some risks that could end up reducing their quality of life. Working a shorter week can decrease employees' job stability and harm their chances for advancing their careers. Four-day employees are likely to be the first to lose their jobs during an economic downturn. They may also be passed over for promotions because companies might prefer to have five-dayemployees in management positions to ensure continuous coverage and consistent supervision for the entire workweek.TPO2ReadingIn many organizations, perhaps the best way to approach certain new projects is to assemble a group of people into a team. Having a team of people attack a project offers several advantages. First of all, a group of people has a wider range of knowledge,expertise, and skills than any single individual is likely to possess. Also, because of the numbers of people involved and the greater resources they possess, a group can work more quickly in response to the task assigned to it and can come up with highly creative solutions to problems and issue s. Sometimes these creative solutions come about because a group is more likely to make risky decisions that an individual might not undertake. This is because the group spreads responsibility for a decision to all the members and thus no single individual can be held accountable if the decision turns out to be wrong.Taking part in a group process can be very rewarding for members of the team. Team members who have a voice in making a decision will no doubt feel better about carrying out the work that is entailed by the decision than they might doing work that is imposed on them by others. Also, the individual team member has a much better chance to “shine”, to get his or her contributions and ideas not only recognized but recognized as highly significant, because a team’s overall results can be more far-reaching and have greater impact than what might have otherwise been possible for the person to accomplish or contribute working alone.ListeningProfessorNow I want to tell you about what one company found when it decided that it would turn over some of its new projects to teams of people, and make the team responsible for planning the projects and getting the work done. After about six months, the company took a look at how well the teams performed.On virtually every team, some members got almost a "free ride" . . . they didn't contribute much at all, but if their team did a good job, they nevertheless benefited from the recognition the team got. And what about group members who worked especially well and who provided a lot of insight on problems and issues? Well . . . the recognition for a job well done went to the group as a whole, no names were named. So it won't surprise you to learn that when the real contributors were asked how they felt about the group process, their attitude was just the opposite of what the reading predicts.Another finding was that some projects just didn't move very quickly. Why? Because it took so long to reach consensus; it took many, many meetings to build the agreement among group members about how they would move the project along. On the other hand, there were other instances where one or two people managed to become very influential over what their group did. Sometimes when those influencers said "That will never work" about an idea the group was developing, the idea was quickly dropped instead of being further discussed. And then there was another occasion when a couple influencers convinced the group that a plan of theirs was "highlycreative." And even though some members tried to warn the rest of the group that the project was moving in directions that might not work, they were basically ignored by other group members. Can you guess the ending to this story? When the project failed, the blame was placed on all the members of the group.TPO3ReadingRembrandt is the most famous of the seventeenth-century Dutch painters. However, there are doubts whether some paintings attributed to Rembrandt were actually painted by him. One such painting is known as attributed to Rembrandt because of its style, and indeed the representation of the woman’s face is very much like that of portraits known to be by Rembrandt. But there are problems with the painting that suggest it could not be a work by Rembrandt.First, there is something inconsistent about the way the woman in the portrait is dressed. She is wearing a white linen cap of a kind that only servants would wear-yet the coat she is wearing has a luxurious fur collar that no servant could afford. Rembrandt, who was known for his attention to the details of his subjects’ clothing, would not have been guilty of such an inconsistency. Second, Rembrandt was a master of painting light and shadow, but in this painting these elements do not fit together. The face appears to be illuminated by light reflected onto it from below. But below the face is the dark fur collar, which would absorb light rather than reflect it. So the face should appear partially in shadow-which is not how it appears. Rembrandt would never have made such an error.Finally, examination of the back of the painting reveals that it was painted on a panel made of several pieces of wood glued together. Although Rembrandt often painted on wood panels, no painting known to be by Rembrandt uses a panel glued together in this way from several pieces of wood.For these reasons the painting was removed from the official catalog of Rembrandt’s paintings in the 1930s.ListeningProfessor:Everything you just read about "Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet" is true, and yet after a thorough re-examination of the painting, a panel of experts has recently concluded that it's indeed a work by Rembrandt. Here is why.First, the fur collar. X-rays and analysis of the pigments in the paint have shown that the fur collar wasn't part of the original painting. The fur collar was painted over the top of the original painting about a hundred years after the painting was made. Why? Someone probably wanted to increase the value of the painting by making it look like a formal portrait of an aristocratic lady. Second, the supposed error with light and shadow. Once the paint of the added fur color was removed, the original could be seen, in the original painting, the woman is wearing a simple collar of light-colored cloth. The light-colored cloth of this collar reflects light that illuminates part of the woman's face. That's why the face is not in partial shadow. So in the original painting, light and shadow are very realistic and just what we would expect from Rembrandt.Finally, the wood panel. It turns out that when the fur collar was added, the wood panel was also enlarged with extra wood pieces glued to the sides and the top to make the painting more grandand more valuable. So the original painting is actually painted on a single piece of wood, as would be expected from a Rembrandt painting. And in fact, researchers have found that the piece of wood in the original form of "Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet" is from the very same tree as the wood panel used for another painting by Rembrandt, his "Self-portrait with a Hat".TPO4ReadingEndotherms are animals such as modern birds and mammals that keep their body temperatures constant. For instance, humans are endotherms and maintain an internal temperature of 37°C, no matter whether the environment is warm or cold. Because dinosaurs were reptiles, and modern reptiles are not endotherms, it was long assumed that dinosaurs were not endotherms. However, dinosaurs differ in many ways from modem reptiles, and there is now considerable evidence that dinosaurs were, in fact, endotherms.Polar dinosaursOne reason for believing that dinosaurs were endotherms is that dinosaur fossils have been discovered in Polar Regions. Only animals that can maintain a temperature well above that of the surrounding environment could be active in such cold climates.Leg position and movementThere is a connection between endothermy and the position and movement of the legs. The physiology of endothermy allows sustained physical activity, such as running. But running is efficient only if an animal's legs are positioned underneath its body, not at the body's side, as they are for crocodiles and many lizards. The legs of all modern endotherms are underneath the body, and so were the legs of dinosaurs. This strongly suggests that dinosaurs were endotherms. Haversian canalsThere is also a connection between endothermy and bone structure. The bones of endotherms usually include structures called Haversian canals. These canals house nerves and blood vessels that allow the living animal to grow quickly, and rapid body growth is in fact a characteristic of endothermy. The presence of Haversian canals in bone is a strong indicator that the animal is an endotherm, and fossilized bones of dinosaurs are usually dense with Haversian canals. ListeningProfessor:Many scientists have problems with the arguments you read in the passage. They don't think those arguments prove that dinosaurs were endotherms.Take the polar dinosaur argument. When dinosaurs lived, even the polar regions, where dinosaur fossils have been found, were much warmer than today, warm enough during part of the year for animals that were not endotherms to live. And during the months when the polar regions were cold, the so-called polar dinosaurs could have migrated to warmer areas or hibernated like many modern reptiles do. So the presence of dinosaur fossils in polar regions doesn't prove the dinosaurs were endotherms.Well, what about the fact that dinosaurs have their legs placed under their bodies, not out to the side like crocodiles. That doesn't necessarily mean dinosaurs were high-energy endotherms built for running. There is another explanation for having legs under the body. This body structuresupports more weight, so with the legs under their bodies, dinosaurs can grow to a very large size. Being large had advantages for dinosaurs, so we don't need the idea of endothermy and running to explain why dinosaurs evolved to have their legs under their bodies.Ok, so how about bone structure? Many dinosaur bones do have Haversian canals, that's true. The dinosaur bones also have growth rings. Growth rings are thickening of the bone that indicates periods of time when the dinosaurs weren't rapidly growing. These growth rings are evidence that dinosaurs stopped growing or grew more slowly during cooler periods. This pattern of periodic growth, you know, rapid growth followed by no growth or slow growth, and then rapid growth again, is characteristic of animals that are not endotherms. Animals that maintain a constant body temperature year-round as true endotherms do grow rapidly even when the environment becomes cool.TPO5ReadingAs early as the twelfth century A.D., the settlements of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico in the American Southwest were notable for their "great houses," massive stone buildings that contain hundreds of rooms and often stand three or four stories high. Archaeologists have been trying to determine how the buildings were used. While there is still no universally agreed upon explanation, there are three competing theories.One theory holds that the Chaco structures were purely residential, with each housing hundreds of people. Supporters of this theory have interpreted Chaco great houses as earlier versions of the architecture seen in more recent Southwest societies. In particular, the Chaco houses appear strikingly similar to the large, well-known "apartment buildings" at Taos, New Mexico, in which many people have been living for centuries.A second theory contends that the Chaco structures were used to store food supplies. One of the main crops of the Chaco people was grain maize, which could be stored for long periods of time without spoiling and could serve as a long-lasting supply of food. The supplies of maize had to be stored somewhere, and the size of the great houses would make them very suitable for the purpose.A third theory proposes that houses were used as ceremonial centers. Close to one house, called Pueblo Alto, archaeologists identified an enormous mound formed by a pile of old material. Excavations of the mound revealed deposits containing a surprisingly large number of broken pots. This finding has been interpreted as evidence that people gathered at Pueblo Alto for special ceremonies. At the ceremonies, they ate festive meals and then discarded the pots in which the meals had been prepared or served. Such ceremonies have been documented for other Native American cultures.ListeningProfessor:Unfortunately none of the arguments about what the Chaco great houses were used for is convincing.First, sure, from the outside, the great houses look like later and Native American apartment but the inside of the great houses casts serious doubt on the idea that many people lived there. I'll explain. If hundreds of people were living in the great houses, then there would have to be manyfireplaces, where each family did its daily cooking, but there are very few fireplaces. In one of the largest great houses, there were fireplaces for only around ten families. Yet there were enough rooms in the great house for more than a hundred families, so the primary function of the houses couldn't have been residential.Second, the idea that the great houses were used to store grain maize ; unsupported by evidence. It may sound plausible that large empty rooms were used for storage, but excavations of the great houses have not uncovered many traces of maize or maize containers. If the great houses were used for storage, why isn't there more spilled maize on the floor? Why aren't there more remains of big containers?Third, the idea that the great houses were ceremonial centers isn't well supported either. You know that mound at Pueblo Alto? It contains lots of other materials besides broken pots, stuff you wouldn't expect from ceremonies. For example, there are large quantities of building materials, sands, stones, even construction tools. This suggests that the mound is just a trash heap of construction material, stuff that was thrown away or not used up when a house was being built. The pots in the pile could be regular trash too, leftover from the meals of the construction workers. So the Pueblo Alto mound is not good evidence that the great houses were used for special ceremoniesTPO6ReadingCommunal online encyclopedias represent one of the latest resources to be found on the Internet. They are in many respects like traditional printed encyclopedias collections of articles on various subjects. What is specific to these online encyclopedias, however, is that any Internet user can contribute a new article or make an editorial change in an existing one. As a result, the encyclopedia is authored by the whole community of Internet users. The idea might sound attractive, but the communal online encyclopedias have several important problems that make them much less valuable than traditional, printed encyclopedias.First, contributors to a communal online encyclopedia often lack academic credentials, thereby making their contributions partially informed at best and downright inaccurate in many cases. Traditional encyclopedias are written by trained experts who adhere to standards of academic rigor that nonspecialists cannot really achieve.Second, even if the original entry in the online encyclopedia is correct, the communal nature of these online encyclopedias gives unscrupulous users and vandals or hackers the opportunity to fabricate, delete, and corrupt information in the encyclopedia. Once changes have been made to the original text, an unsuspecting user cannot tell the entry has been tampered with. None of this is possible with a traditional encyclopedia.Third, the communal encyclopedias focus too frequently, and in too great a depth, on trivial and popular topics, which creates a false impression of what is important and what is not. A child doing research for a school project may discover that a major historical event receives as much attention in an online encyclopedia as, say, a single long-running television program. The traditional encyclopedia provides a considered view of what topics to include or exclude and contains a sense of proportion that online "democratic" communal encyclopedias do not.ListeningProfessor:The communal online encyclopedia wil! probably never be perfect, but that's a small price to pay for what it does offer. The criticisms in the reading are largely the result of prejudice against and ignorance about how far online encyclopedias have come.First, errors. It's hardly a fair criticism that encyclopedias online have errors. Traditional encyclopedias have never been close to perfectly accurate, if you are looking for a realty comprehensive reference work without any mistakes, you are not going to find it, on or off line. The real point is that it's easy for errors in factual material to be corrected in an online encyclopedia But with the printed and bound encyclopedia, the errors remain for decades. Second, hacking. Online encyclopedias have recognized the importance of protecting their articles from malicious hackers. One strategy they started using is to put the crucial facts in the articles that nobody disputes in a read-only format, which is a format that no one can make changes to. That way you are making sure that the crucial facts in the articles are reliable. Another strategy that's being used is to have special editors whose job is to monitor all changes made to the articles and eliminate those changes that are clearly malicious.Third, what's worth knowing about? The problem for traditional encyclopedias is that they have limited space, so they have to decide what's important and what's not. And in practice, the judgments of the group of academics that make these decfsions don't reflect the great range of interests that people really have. But space is definitely not an issue for online encyclopedias. The academic articles are stiii represented in online encyclopedias, but there can be a great variety of articles and topics that accurately reflect the great diversity of users' interests. The diversity of use in topics that online encyclopedias offer is one of their strongest advantagesTPO7ReadingIn an effort to encourage ecologically sustainable forestry practices, an international organization started issuing certifications to wood companies that meet high ecological standards by conserving resources and recycling materials. Companies that receive this certification can attract customers by advertising their products as ecocertified. Around the world, many wood companies have adopted new, ecologically friendly practices in order to receive ecocertification. However, it is unlikely that wood companies in the United States will do the same, for several reasons.First, American consumers are exposed to so much advertising that they would not value or even pay attention to the ecocertification label. Because so many mediocre products are labeled 'new" or improved,'' American consumers do not place much trust in advertising claims in general. Second, ecocertified wood will be more expensive than uncertified wood because in order to earn ecocertification, a wood company must pay to have its business examined by a certification agency. This additional cost gets passed on to consumers-American consumers tend to be strongly motivated by price, and therefore they are likely to choose cheaper uncertified wood products. Accordingly, American wood companies will prefer to keep their prices low rather than obtain ecocertificationThird, although some people claim that it always makes good business sense for Americancompanies to keep up with the developments in the rest of the world, this argument is not convincing. Pursuing certification would make sense for American wood companies only if they marketed most of their products abroad. But that is not the case,American wood businesses sell most of their products in the United States, catering to a very large customer base that is satisfied with the merchandise.ListeningWell, despite what many people say, there is a good reason to think that many American wood companies will eventually seek ecocertification for the wood products.First off, companies in the United States don't treat all advertising the same.They distinguish between advertising claims that companies make about their own products and claims made by independent certification agencies. Americans have a lot of confidence in independent agencies. Thus ecologically-minded Americans are likely to react very favorably to wood products ecologically certified by independent organization with a intenational reputation for trustworthiness.Second point ,of course it is true that American consumers care a lot about price ,who doesn't?But studies of how consumers make decisions show that price alone deterimines consumers' decisions only when the price of one competing products is much higher or lower than the other.When the difference between two products is small ,say , less than 5 percent,as is the case with certified wood, American often do choose on factories other than price.And Americans are becoming increasingly convinced of the value of preserving and protecting the environment.And third, US Wood companies should definitely pay attention what is going on in the wood business internationally. Not because of foreign consumers but because of foreign competitors. As I just told you, there is a good chance that many American consumers will be interested in ecocertified products, and guess why? If American companies are slow capturing those consumers, you can be sure that foreign companies will soon start crowding into the American markets, offering ecocerfied wood that domestic companies don't.TPO8ReadingToward the end of his life, the Chevalier de Seingalt (1725-1798) wrote a long memoir recounting his life and adventures. The Chevalier was a somewhat controversial figure, but since he met many famous people, including kings and writers, his memoir has become a valuable historical source about European society in the eighteenth century. However, some critics have raised doubts about the accuracy of the memoir. They claim that the Chevalier distorted or invented many events in the memoir to make his life seem more exciting and glamorous than it really was. For example, in his memoir the Chevalier claims that while living in Switzerland, he was very wealthy, and it is known that he spent a great deal of money there on parties and gambling. However, evidence has recently surfaced that the Chevalier borrowed considerable sums of money from a Swiss merchant. Critics thus argue that if the Chevalier had really been very rich, he would not have needed to borrow money.Critics are also skeptical about the accuracy of the conversations that the Chevalier records in thememoir between himself and the famous writer Voltaire. No one doubts that the Chevalier and Voltaire met and conversed. However, critics complain that the memoir cannot possibly capture these conversations accurately, because it was written many years after the conversations occurred. Critics point out that it is impossible to remember exact phrases from extended conversations held many years earlier.Critics have also questioned the memoir's account of the Chevalier's escape from a notorious prison in Venice, Italy. He claims to have escaped the Venetian prison by using a piece of metal to make a hole in the ceiling and climbing through the roof. Critics claim that while such a daring escape makes for enjoyable reading, it is more likely that the Chevaliers jailers were bribed to free him. They point out that the Chevalier had a number of politically well-connected friends in Venice who could have offered a bribe.ListeningProfessor:No memoir can possibly be correct in every detail, but still, the Chevalier's memoir is pretty accurate overall, and is, by and large, a reliable historical source Let's look at the accuracy of the three episodes mentioned in the reading.First, the loan from the merchant. Well, that doesn't mean that the Chevalier was poor. Let me explain. We know that in Switzerland, the Chevalier spent huge amounts of money on parties and gambling, and he had wealth. But it was a kind of property you have to seil first to get money. So it usually took a few days to convert his assets into actual money. So when he ran out of cash, he had to borrow some while he was waiting for his money to arrive, but that's not being poor. Second, the conversations with Voltaire. The Chevalier states in his memoir that each night immediately after conversing with Voltaire, he wrote down everything he could remember about that particular night's conversation. Evidently the Chevalier kept his notes of these conversations for many years and referred to them when writing the memoir. Witnesses who lived with the Chevalier in his later life confirmed that he regularly consulted notes and journals when composing the memoir.Third, the Chevalier's escape from a prison in Venice. Other prisoners in that prison had even more powerful friends than he did, and none of them were ever able to bribe their way to freedom, So bribery hardly seems likely in his case. The best evidence, though, comes from some old Venetian government documents. They indicate that soon after the Chevalier escaped from the prison, the ceiling of his old prison room had to be repaired. Why would they need to repair a ceiling unless he had escaped exactly as he said he did.TPO9ReadingCar manufacturers and governments have been eagerly seeking a replacement for the automobile's main source of power, the internal-combustion engine. By far the most promising alternative source of energy for cars is the hydrogen-based fuel-cell engine, which uses hydrogen to create electricity that, in turn, powers the car. Fuel-cell engines have several advantages over internal-combustion engines and will probably soon replace them.One of the main problems with the internal-combustion engine is that it relies on petroleum,。

托福TPO20阅读Passage1原文文本+题目+答案解析

¡¡¡¡ÎªÁ˰ïÖú´ó¼Ò¸ßЧ±¸¿¼Íи££¬Îª´ó¼Ò´øÀ´Íи£TPO20ÔĶÁPassage1Ô-ÎÄÎı¾+ÌâÄ¿+´ð°¸½âÎö£¬Ï£Íû¶Ô´ó¼Ò±¸¿¼ÓÐËù°ïÖú¡£¡¡¡¡¨ Íи£TPO20ÔĶÁPassage1Ô-ÎÄÎı¾£º¡¡¡¡Westward Migration¡¡¡¡The story of the westward movement of population in the United States is, in the main, the story of the expansion of American agriculture¡ªof the development of new areas for the raising of livestock and the cultivation of wheat, corn, tobacco, and cotton. After 1815 improved transportation enabled more and more western farmers to escape a self-sufficient way of life and enter a national market economy. During periods when commodity prices were high, the rate of westward migration increased spectacularly. "Old America seemed to be breaking up and moving westward," observed an English visitor in 1817,during the first great wave of migration. Emigration to the West reached a peak in the 1830's. Whereas in 1810 only a seventh of the American people lived west of the Appalachian Mountains, by 1840 more than a third lived there.¡¡¡¡Why were these hundreds of thousands of settlers¡ªmost of them farmers, some of them artisans¡ªdrawn away from the cleared fields and established cities and villages of the East? Certain characteristics of American society help to explain this remarkable migration. The European ancestors of some Americans had for centuries lived rooted to the same village or piece of land until some religious, political, or economic crisis uprooted them and drove them across the Atlantic. Many of those who experienced this sharp break thereafter lacked the ties that had bound them and their ancestors to a single place. Moreover, European society was relatively stratified; occupation and social status were inherited. In American society, however, the class structure was less rigid; some people changed occupations easily and believed it was their duty to improve their social and economic position. As a result, many Americans were an inveterately restless, rootless, and ambitious people. Therefore, these social traits helped to produce the nomadic and daring settlers who kept pushing westward beyond the fringes of settlement. In addition, there were other immigrants who migrated west in search of new homes, material success, and better lives.¡¡¡¡The West had plenty of attractions: the alluvial river bottoms, the fecund soils of the rolling forest lands, the black loams of the prairies were tempting to New England farmers working their rocky, sterile land and to southeastern farmers plagued with soil depletion and erosion. In 1820 under a new land law, a farm could be bought for $100. The continued proliferation of banks made it easier for those without cash to negotiate loans in paper money. Western Farmers borrowed with the confident expectation that the expanding economy would keep farm prices high, thus making it easy to repay loans when they fell due.¡¡¡¡Transportation was becoming less of a problem for those who wished to move westand for those who hand farm surpluses to send to market. Prior to 1815, western farmers who did not live on navigable waterways were connected to them only by dirt roads and mountain trails. Livestock could be driven across the mountains, but the cost of transporting bulky grains in this fashion was several times greater than their value in eastern markets. The first step toward an improvement of western transportation was the construction of turnpikes. These roads made possible a reduction in transportation costs and thus stimulated the commercialization of agriculture along their routes.¡¡¡¡Two other developments presaged the end of the era of turnpikes and started a transportation revolution that resulted in increased regional specialization and the growth of a national market economy. First came the steamboat; although flatboats and keelboats continued to be important until the 1850¡¯s steamboats eventually superseded all other craft in the carrying of passengers and freight. Steamboats were not only faster but also transported upriver freight for about one tenth of what it had previously cost on hand-propelled keelboats. Next came the Erie Canal, an enormous project in its day, spanning about 350 miles. After the canal went into operation, the cost per mile of transporting a ton of freight from Buffalo to New York City declined from nearly 20 cents to less than 1 cent. Eventually, the western states diverted much of their produce from the rivers to the Erie Canal, a shorter route to eastern markets.¡¡¡¡Paragraph 1: The story of the westward movement of population in the United States is, in the main, the story of the expansion of American agriculture¡ªof the development of new areas for the raising of livestock and the cultivation of wheat, corn, tobacco, and cotton. After 1815 improved transportation enabled more and more western farmers to escape a self-sufficient way of life and enter a national market economy. During periods when commodity prices were high, the rate of westward migration increased spectacularly. "Old America seemed to be breaking up and moving westward," observed an English visitor in 1817,during the first great wave of migration. Emigration to the West reached a peak in the 1830's. Whereas in 1810 only a seventh of the American people lived west of the Appalachian Mountains, by 1840 more than a third lived there.¡¡¡¡¨ Íи£TPO20ÔĶÁPassage1ÌâÄ¿£º¡¡¡¡1. What can be inferred from paragraph 1 about western farmers prior to 1815?¡¡¡¡O They had limited their crop production to wheat, corn, tobacco, and cotton.¡¡¡¡O They were able to sell their produce at high prices.¡¡¡¡O They had not been successful in raising cattle.¡¡¡¡O They did not operate in a national market economy.。

托福TPO20听力Conversation2文本+题目+答案解析

托福TPO20听力Conversation2文本+题目+答案解析为了帮助大家高效备考托福,为大家带来托福TPO20听力Conversation2文本+题目+答案解析,希望对大家备考有所帮助。

托福TPO20听力Conversation2文本Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.Student: Professor Jennings, I hope I am not interrupting, but you wanted to see me?Professor: Oh, hello, Suzanne. Yes, yes, come right in. How are you doing?Student: All right.Professor: Well, good. The reason I wanted to talk to you was that while you were presenting you linguistics project in class the other day, well, you know, I was thinking you are a perfect candidate for the dean’s undergraduate research fund.Student: Um ... Professor, I am really sure what the... um ... dean ....Professor: Undergraduate research fund is ... It is a mouthful I suppose. OK. Here’s the thing. Every year the school has a pool of money to fund a number of research projects of undergraduate students. Because as you can imagine, in-depth research often requires monetary support.Student: I would like to expand on my research.Professor: Good. First a panel of professors reviews the applications for the grant. And then they decide which project should be funded. The allotted money could be used for travel expenses, to attend a conference for example, or things like supplies, research equipment, resources that are necessary to conduct the research.Student: I see.Professor: Right. And I think you should apply for this grant. Your project is definitely eligible. And you can expand it if you have the necessary resources. So, does it sound like something you would be interested in?Student: Oh, yeah, sounds great. I thought the topic I work on was very interesting, and it is certainly relevant to my linguistics major. I assume it will also look good when I try to get into graduate school. But how do I apply for the grant?Professor: It is pretty straightforward. A brief description of your proposedproject, and an estimated budget. How much you need to spend and what you intend to spend it on. Also a glowing letter of recommendation from a linguistics professor wouldn’t hurt, which I’d be more than happy to write up for you.Student: OK. Cool. I am pretty clear on how to carry out my project, but I am not sure where I can find more information on the subject.Professor: Well, I have already thought of that. There’s this private library at a university in Boston. By the way, because I graduated from that school, I can get you access to it, no problem. You see, the library houses lots of unpublished documents that are relevant to your topic.Student: So I can put that on the application for the grant, that I plan on using material from that library for my research and figure a trip to Boston into my budget?Professor: Exactly. I really think judging from your work in class, and the relevance and clarity of this project, you really have a good chance of getting the funding.Student: OK. I’ll definitely apply then.Professor: The sooner the better. It is due in a few weeks. Good Luck! And I’ll get that letter written up right away.托福TPO20听力Conversation2题目1.Why does the professor want to talk to the student?A. To discuss her application to graduate school.B. To discuss a possible internship at the school’s libraryC. To encourage her to increase the scope of her research projectD. To suggest some changes to improve her research project.2.According to the professor, what information should be included in the student’s application?A. The amount of money she will need for her researchB. The amount of time she will need to complete her projectC. A summary of research already conducted on the topic。

托福听力TPO20原文Conversation1

托福听力TPO20原文Conversation1托福听力TPO20原文Conversation1下面就让小编来为大家介绍一下托福听力TPO20原文中Conversation1的文本内容吧,大家要好好把握,这些都是非常有价值的材料,同时,大家也可以登录前程百利论坛进行TPO练习辅导,希望能够给准备托福听力的同学带来帮助。

TPO20Conversation1Student:Excuse me,I received a letter that I am supposed to return a book that I checked out back in September,it’s called Modern Social Problems.But I am writing my senior thesis,so I thought I was allowed to keep the book for the whole academic year.Librarian:So you signed up for extended borrowing privileges?Student:Yeah.Librarian:And we are still asking you to bring the book back?Student:Uh-huh.Do I really have to?Librarian:Well,let me check the computer.The title was...Modern Social Problems?Student:Yeah.Librarian:Eh...Ok,yeah.It’s been recalled.You can keep it all year as long as no one else requests it,but someone else has,it looks like one of the professors in the sociology department.So you have to bring it back.You can check it out again when it is returned in a couple of weeks.What if the person renews it?And I really need it right now.Librarian:All of it?Or is there a certain section or chapter you are working with?Student:Well,there’s one chapter in particular I amworking with,but why?Librarian:Well,we normally don’t do this,but because of the circumstances we can photocopy up to one chapter for you.Why don’t you do that for the one you are working with right now?And by the time you need the rest of the book,maybe it’ll have been return ed.Student:Oh,that would be great.Librarian:Do you have it with you?Student:Eh...no,it’s in my dorm room.These are books I want to check out today. Is it OK if I bring that one by in a couple of days?Librarian:Actually,the due day is tomorrow.After tha t,there’ll be a two dollar per day fine.But you need to return it today if you want to check out any books today. That’s our policy.Student:Oh,I see.Librarian:Yeah,not a lot of people realize that.In fact,every semester we get a few students who would have their borrowing privileges suspended completely because they haven’t returned books.They are allowed to use books only in the library.They are not allowed to check anything out because of unreturned books.That’s not good.I guess I should head back to th e dorm right now.Librarian:But before you go,what you should do is fill out a form requesting the book back in two weeks.Then the person who requested it won’t be able to renew it.You’ll get it back quickly.Student:I’ll do that right now.解析:从对话来看,男生得到了自己想知道的答案,并且可以拿到photocopies来完成文章。

【托福写作备考】TPO20综合写作文本与解析

【托福写作备考】TPO20综合写作文本与解析TPO 20先来看看以下的阅读材料:In the United States, it had been common practice since the late 1960s not tosuppress natural forest fires. The “let it burn” policy assumed that forestfires would burn themselves out quickly, without causing much damage. However,in the summer of 1988, forest fires in Yellowstone, the most famous nationalpark in the country, burned for more than two months and spread over a hugearea, encompassing more than 800,000 acres. Because of the large scale of thedamage, many people called for replacing the “let it burn” policy with a policyof extinguishing forest fires as soon as they appeared. Three kinds of damagecaused by the “let it burn” policy were emphasized by critics of the policy.中文翻译:在美国,从1960年代末开始就非常普遍地对森林大火采取不扑灭的策略。

这种”随它燃烧”的策略认为森林大火可以在不造成太多损失的情况下迅速燃烧完。

然后,1988年发生在美国最出名的黄石国家公园的森林大火却整整燃烧了两个月,蔓延了80万英亩。

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TPO 20先来看看以下的阅读材料:In the United States, it had been common practice since the late 1960s not to suppress natural forest fires. The “let it burn”policy assumed that forest fires would burn themselves out quickly, without causing much damage. However, in the summer of 1988, forest fires in Yellowstone, the most famous national park in the country, burned for more than two months and spread over a huge area, encompassing more than 800,000 acres. Because of the large scale of the damage, many people called for replacing the “let it burn” policy with a policy of extinguishing forest fires as soon as they appeared. Three kinds of damage caused by the “let it burn” policy were emphasized by critics of the policy.中文翻译:在美国,从1960年代末开始就非常普遍地对森林大火采取不扑灭的策略。

这种“随它燃烧”的策略认为森林大火可以在不造成太多损失的情况下迅速燃烧完。

然后,1988年发生在美国最出名的黄石国家公园的森林大火却整整燃烧了两个月,蔓延了80万英亩。

鉴于这次造成的巨大损失,很多人主张取消“随它燃烧”的策略,转而开始全力扑灭森林大火的策略。

评论家们提供了三个由“随它燃烧”策略造成的损害来支持自己的观点。

First, Yellowstone fires cause tremendous damage to the parks trees and other vegetation. When the fires finally died out, nearly one third of Yellowstone’s land had been scorched. Trees were charred and blackened from flames and smoke. Smaller plants were entirely incinerated. What had been a national treasure now seemed like a devastated wasteland.中文翻译:首先,黄石大火给公园里的树木以及其他植物造成了巨大的损失。

当火燃尽的时候,黄石公园接近三分之一的面积已成焦土。

火焰烧焦树木,浓烟熏黑树木。

小型植物则被彻底烧成灰烬。

当看到宝贵的国家财富成为一片荒地的时候,会是何种感觉?Second, the park wildlife was affected as well. Large animals like deer and elk were seen fleeing the fire. Many smaller species were probably unable to escape. There was also concern than the destruction of habitats and the disruption of food chains would make it impossible for the animals that survived the fire to return.中文翻译:第二,公园的野生动物也遭到了伤害。

像鹿或者麋鹿这些大型动物在火灾中都逃脱了,但是很多小型动物却不能逃脱。

同时,大火还破坏了动物的栖息地并打乱了食物链,这使得当或在结束之后,逃离的动物也无法回来栖息于此。

Third, the fires compromised the value of the park as a tourist attraction, which in turn had negative consequences for the local economy. With several thousand acres of the park engulfed in flames, the tourist season was cut short, and a large number of visitors decided to stay away. Of course, local businesses that depended on park visitors suffered as a result.中文翻译:第三,火灾会降低公园对游客的吸引力,进而对当地的经济造成不良的影响。

由于数千英亩的土地被火焰吞没,旅游旺季缩短了,而很多游客都会选择放弃游览黄石公园。

当地的经济对于旅游业依赖很大,自然会受到负面影响。

读完综合写作的阅读部分需要提取的观点是:- Main point: 专家主张废除“随它燃烧”的策略- Sub point 1: 会对国家公园的植物造成伤害- Sub point 2: 会对国家公园的动物造成伤害- Sub point 3: 火灾会降低公园对游客的吸引力以下是听力材料:Actually, fires are natural part of ecological cycle and their role is not just destructive but also creative. That is why the “let it burn”policy is fundamentally a good one, even if it sometimes causes fires of the 1988 Yellowstone fire. Let’s look at what happened after 1988 fire.中文翻译:事实上,森林大火是生态系统的组成部分,而且大火的角色不仅仅是破坏性的,同时也是建设性的。

这就是为什么“随它燃烧”政策基本上是正确的,尽管它导致了1988年黄石大火。

让我们看看1988大火之后发生了什么。

First, vegetation. As you might imagine, scorched areas were in time colonized by new plants. As a matter of fact, the plants in Yellowstone became more diverse because the fire created an opportunity for certain plants that could not grow otherwise. For example, areas where the trees have been destroyed by the fire could now be taken over by smaller plants that needed open and shaded space to grow. And another example, seeds of certain plants species won’t germinate unless they’re exposed to very high levels of heat. So, those plants started appearing after the fire as well.中文翻译:首先,对于植物来说。

你们可以想到,那些烧焦的地方随着时间的发展都会被新的植物覆盖。

而且事实上,因为大火给一些本来难以生长的种类得以发芽,黄石的植物因此变得更具多样性。

比如,原来长满树木的地方因为火灾遭到破坏,但现在那里长满了需要开阔而阴凉空间的小型植物。

另一个例子是,一些植物的种子只有经受过非常高的温度之后才能够发芽。

所以,这些植物会在大火之后开始生长。

It’s a similar story with the animals. Not only did their populations recover, but the fire also created new opportunities. For instance, the small plants that replaced trees after the fire created an ideal habitat for certain small animals like rabbits and hares. And when rabbits and hares started thriving, so did some predators that depended on them for food. So, certain food chains actually became stronger after the fire than they were before.中文翻译:动物的情况也类似。

不但动物的数量会逐步回复,而且大火会给动物的生长带来新的机会。

比如,那些在火灾之后取代原有树木的小型植物给一些小型动物提供了极佳的栖息地,比如兔子。

当兔子的数量开始变多,那么以它们为食的捕食者的数量也会增加。

所以,大火过后,相应的食物链会变得比之前更加稳定。

And last, fires like 1988 Yellowstone fire would be a problem for tourism if they happened every year. But they don’t. It was a very unusual combination of factors that year, low rainfall, unusually strong winds, accumulation of dry undergrowth that caused fire to be so massive. This combination has not occurred since and Yellowstone has not seen such a fire since 1988. Visitors came back to the park next year and each year after that.中文翻译:最后,只要1988年的黄石大火不是每年都发生,那么就不会对旅游业造成巨大问题。

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