托福阅读机经背景文化类：走出我们世界的背影-老虎
tpo32三篇托福阅读TOEFL原文译文题目答案译文背景知识
tpo32三篇托福阅读TOEFL原文译文题目答案译文背景知识阅读-1 (2)原文 (2)译文 (5)题目 (7)答案 (16)背景知识 (16)阅读-2 (25)原文 (25)译文 (28)题目 (31)答案 (40)背景知识 (41)阅读-3 (49)原文 (49)译文 (53)题目 (55)答案 (63)背景知识 (64)阅读-1原文Plant Colonization①Colonization is one way in which plants can change the ecology of a site. Colonization is a process with two components: invasion and survival. The rate at which a site is colonized by plants depends on both the rate at which individual organisms (seeds, spores, immature or mature individuals) arrive at the site and their success at becoming established and surviving. Success in colonization depends to a great extent on there being a site available for colonization – a safe site where disturbance by fire or by cutting down of trees has either removed competing species or reduced levels of competition and other negative interactions to a level at which the invading species can become established. For a given rate of invasion, colonization of a moist, fertile site is likely to be much more rapid than that of a dry, infertile site because of poor survival on the latter. A fertile, plowed field is rapidly invaded by a large variety of weeds, whereas a neighboring construction site from which the soil has been compacted or removed to expose a coarse, infertile parent material may remain virtually free of vegetation for many months or even years despite receiving the same input of seeds as the plowed field.②Both the rate of invasion and the rate of extinction vary greatly among different plant species. Pioneer species - those that occur only in the earliest stages of colonization -tend to have high rates of invasion because they produce very large numbers of reproductive propagules (seeds, spores, and so on) and because they have an efficient means of dispersal (normally, wind).③If colonizers produce short-lived reproductive propagules, they must produce very large numbers unless they have an efficient means of dispersal to suitable new habitats. Many plants depend on wind for dispersal and produce abundant quantities of small, relatively short-lived seeds to compensate for the fact that wind is not always a reliable means If reaching the appropriate type of habitat. Alternative strategies have evolved in some plants, such as those that produce fewer but larger seeds that are dispersed to suitable sites by birds or small mammals or those that produce long-lived seeds. Many forest plants seem to exhibit the latter adaptation, and viable seeds of pioneer species can be found in large numbers on some forest floors. For example, as many as 1,125 viable seeds per square meter were found in a 100-year-old Douglas fir/western hemlock forest in coastal British Columbia. Nearly all the seeds that had germinated from this seed bank were from pioneer species. The rapid colonization of such sites after disturbance is undoubtedly in part a reflection of the largeseed band on the forest floor.④An adaptation that is well developed in colonizing species is a high degree of variation in germination (the beginning of a seed’s growth). Seeds of a given species exhibit a wide range of germination dates, increasing the probability that at least some of the seeds will germinate during a period of favorable environmental conditions. This is particularly important for species that colonize an environment where there is no existing vegetation to ameliorate climatic extremes and in which there may be great climatic diversity.⑤Species succession in plant communities, i.e., the temporal sequence of appearance and disappearance of species is dependent on events occurring at different stages in the life history of a species. Variation in rates of invasion and growth plays an important role in determining patterns of succession, especially secondary succession. The species that are first to colonize a site are those that produce abundant seed that is distributed successfully to new sites. Such species generally grow rapidly and quickly dominate new sites, excluding other species with lower invasion and growth rates. The first community that occupies a disturbed area therefore may be composed of specie with the highest rate of invasion, whereas the community of the subsequent stage may consist of plants with similar survival ratesbut lower invasion rates.译文植物定居①定居是植物改变一个地点生态环境的一种方式。
托福阅读tpo50R-1原文+译文+题目+答案+背景知识
TPO50阅读-1American Railroads原文 (1)译文 (2)题目 (3)答案 (8)背景知识 (9)原文American Railroads①In the United States,railroads spearheaded the second phase of the transportation revolution by overtaking the previous importance of canals.The mid-1800s saw a great expansion of American railroads.The major cities east of the Mississippi River were linked by a spiderweb of railroad tracks.Chicago's growth illustrates the impact of these rail links.In1849Chicago was a village of a few hundred people with virtually no rail service.By1860it had become a city of 100,000,served by eleven railroads.Farmers to the north and west of Chicago no longer had to ship their grain,livestock,and dairy products down the Mississippi River to New Orleans;they could now ship their products directly east.Chicago supplanted New Orleans as the interior of America's main commercial hub.②The east-west rail lines stimulated the settlement and agricultural development of the Midwest.By1860Illinois,Indiana,and Wisconsin had replaced Ohio, Pennsylvania,and New York as the leading wheat-growing states.Enabling farmers to speed their products to the East,railroads increased the value of farmland and promoted additional settlement.In turn,population growth in agricultural areas triggered industrial development in cities such as Chicago,Davenport(Iowa),and Minneapolis,for the new settlers needed lumber for fences and houses and mills to grind wheat into flour.③Railroads also propelled the growth of small towns along their routes.The Illinois Central Railroad,which had more track than any other railroad in1855, made money not only from its traffic but also from real estate speculation. Purchasing land for stations along its path,the Illinois Central then laid out towns around the stations.The selection of Manteno,Illinois,as a stop of the Illinois Central,for example,transformed the site from a crossroads without a single house in1854into a bustling town of nearly a thousand in1860,replete with hotels,lumberyards,grain elevators,and gristmills.By the Civil War(1861-1865), few thought of the railroad-linked Midwest as a frontier region or viewed its inhabitants as pioneers.④As the nation's first big business,the railroads transformed the conduct ofbusiness.During the early1830s,railroads,like canals,depended on financial aid from state governments.With the onset of economic depression in the late1830s, however,state governments scrapped overly ambitious railroad projects. Convinced that railroads burdened them with high taxes and blasted hopes,voters turned against state aid,and in the early1840s,several states amended their constitutions to bar state funding for railroads and canals.The federal government took up some of the slack,but federal aid did not provide a major stimulus to railroads before1860.Rather,part of the burden of finance passed to city and county governments in agricultural areas that wanted to attract railroads.Such municipal governments,for example,often gave railroads rights-of-way,grants of land for stations,and public funds.⑤The dramatic expansion of the railroad network in the1850s,however,strained the financing capacity of local governments and required a turn toward private investment,which had never been absent from the picture.Well aware of the economic benefits of railroads,individuals living near them had long purchased railroad stock issued by governments and had directly bought stock in railroads, often paying by contributing their labor to building the railroads.But the large railroads of the1850s needed more capital than such small investors could generate.Gradually,the center of railroad financing shifted to New York City,and in fact,it was the railroad boom of the1850s that helped make Wall Street in New York City the nation's greatest capital market.The stocks of all the leading railroads were traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during the1850s.In addition,the growth of railroads turned New York City into the center of modern investment firms.The investment firms evaluated the stock of railroads in the smaller American cities and then found purchasers for these stocks in New York City,Philadelphia,Paris,London,Amsterdam,and Hamburg.Controlling the flow of funds to railroads,the investment bankers began to exert influence over the railroads'internal affairs by supervising administrative reorganizations in times of trouble.译文美国铁路①在美国，铁路超越了运河从前的重要性，成为运输革命第二阶段的先锋。
托福2016年下半年阅读机经
Biology
Poisonous Insects and the Birds that Eat them
7月16日
history
The Rise of Florence
biology
Characteristics of Tropical Rain Forest
biology
Why Nonavian Dinosaur Become Extinct?
8月27日
History
Photography and pictorial weeklies
Magafauna Eቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱtinction Green Crab
Differences between Ancient Europe Towns and Villages Constraints on Natural Selection The decline of Western Rome Insect senses
Art 12月11日
The Sistine Ceiling
History
Explanation of the Collapse of Bronze Age Societies
biology
12月10日
economy
Geology
Effects of Predation on distribution of species The Age of Industrialism Methane and PETM
History art
Coal, Iron and Steam cinema
biology
The Extinction of the Dinasours
biology
托福阅读infer题双向思路破难题
托福阅读infer题双向思路破难题任何题型的考察都是围绕着托福阅读文章本身来的，我们只要理清了托福阅读文章的“套路”和逻辑，下面小编就和大家分享托福阅读infer题：不走寻常路，双向思路破难题,希望能够帮助到大家，来欣赏一下吧。
托福阅读infer题：不走寻常路，双向思路破难题“infer”意为推断推理，题干中有出现infer,imply,indicate或suggest这四个单词，我们就判定这个题目为托福阅读infer题(推断题or推理题)。
托福阅读infer题顾名思义就是考察考生对文章没有明说观点或想法的推理能力，你可以理解为是考察隐藏的事实信息。
如果让所有考生投票选择托福阅读中最难的题型，大概莫过于推断题和文章摘要题了，而文章摘要题我们尚且可以依赖文章结构框架把握，托福阅读infer题则是真正让很多同学感到头痛。
其实，任何题型的考察都是围绕着托福阅读文章本身来的，我们只要理清了托福阅读文章的“套路”和逻辑，完全可以根据作者的思路和风格去采取正向和逆向双重思维解决推断题。
OG上将推断题定义为检查考生对文章中强烈建议但绝不明说观点(strongly implied but not explicitly stated in the text)的理解程度，属于理解性题目。
一般来说，托福阅读infer题主要有以下三个解题步骤：1.判断题型。
我们拿到题目，看到上面四个单词中的任何一个，心中就想着这是推断题，推断题的做题宗旨是文章强烈暗示，要通过文章内容进行合理推断。
2.审清题干，原文定位。
仔细阅读题干，弄清题干内容，推断方向，带着题干核心信息到文章中准确定位。
3.推测+判断。
根据相关句进行正向或逆向的推理，最后择优而选，确定答案。
托福文章有很清晰的逻辑结构，每个自然段往往是按照TS(Topic Sentence)+SD (Supporting details)展开的，而文章多半是按Introduction + Aspects+Attitudes展开的。
托福阅读真题第45篇TheDoc...
托福阅读真题第45篇TheDoc...In the United States, the nonfiction film was primarily defined and sustained by the travelogue, which was filmed in foreign lands and shown at lectures and sideshows to introduce audiences to different cultures and exotic locations. In 1904, at the St. Louis Exposition, George . Hale's Tours and Scenes of the World was particularly successful but did not reach the mythic proportions of the film made from President Teddy Roosevelt's frican safaris or Robert Scott's expedition to the South Pole. These kinds of travelogues appealed to the merican public because they demonstrated a spirit of enterprise and adventure. This outlook underpins the Romantic tradition of filmmaking that begins with travelogues of the merican West and comes to its fullest expression in the films of Robert Flaherty. It is he who most embodies the development of the documentary form as an objective tool of ethnography- -the scientific study of other cultures from a position "within" the community- -and anthropology.His film Nanook of the North (1922), a study of Inuits of northern anada, is acknowledged as one of the most influential films within the genre. It perhaps provides us with all the clues we require to define both the documentary and its acceptable limits. Flaherty's films, which have been called“authored" films, are made with a specific intent: not merely to record the lives of the Inuits but to recall and restage a former, more“p rimitive" era of Inuit life. This nostalgic intent only serves to mythologize Inuit life and to some extent remove it from its real context, thus calling into question some of the inherent principles that we may assume are crucial in determining documentary "truth."lthough Flaherty was an advocate of the use of lenses that could view the subject from a long distance so as not to affect unduly the behavior of the natives, and he filmed long, uninterrupted scenes at one time without stopping the camera instead of using complex editing, it is his intervention in the material that is most problematic when evaluating Nanook as a key documentary. Flaherty was not content merely to record events; he wanted to dramatize actuality by filming aspects of Inuit culture that he knew of from his earlier travels into the Hudson ay area between 1910 and 1916. For example, he rebuilt igloos to accommodate camera equipment and organized parts of Inuit lifestyle to suit the technical requirements of filming under these conditions. In another of his documentaries, Moana (1926), Flaherty staged a ritual tattooing ceremony among the Samoan Islanders, recalling a practice that had not been carried out for many years. In Man of ran (1935) shark hunts were also staged and did not characterize the contemporary existence of the ran Islanders.John Grierson, the ritish documentary maker, argues that Flaherty becomes intimate with the subject matter before he records it and thus,“He lives with his people till the story is told 'out of himself' and this enables him to 'make the primary distinction between a method which describes only the surface value of a subject and a method that more explosively reveals the reality of it."" This seems to legitimize Flaherty's approach because Nanook, Moana, and Man of ran all succeed in revealing the practices of more“primitive”cultures- cultures which in Flaherty's view embody a certain kind of simple and romanticized social perfection.learly then, Flaherty essentially uses actuality to illustratedominant themes and interests that he is eager to explore. In some ways, Flaherty ignores the real social and political dimensions informing his subjects' lives and indeed does not engage with the darker side of human sensibility, preferring instead to prioritize larger, more mythic and universal topics. There is almost a nostalgic yearning in Flaherty's work to return to a simpler, more physical, preindustrial world, where humankind could pit itself against the natural world, slowly but surely harnessing its forces to positive ends. Families and communities are seen as stoic and noble in their endeavors, surviving often against terrible odds. Flaherty obviously manipulates his material and sums up one of the apparent ironies in creating documentary“truth" by suggesting that“Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit."1.In the United States, the nonfiction film was primarily defined and sustained by the travelogue, which was filmed in foreign lands and shown at lectures and sideshows to introduce audiences to different cultures and exotic locations. In 1904, at the St. Louis Exposition, George . Hale's Tours and Scenes of the World was particularly successful but did not reach the mythic proportions of the film made from President Teddy Roosevelt's frican safaris or Robert Scott's expedition to the South Pole. These kinds of travelogues appealed to the merican public because they demonstrated a spirit of enterprise and adventure. This outlook underpins the Romantic tradition of filmmaking that begins with travelogues of the merican West and comes to its fullest expression in the films of Robert Flaherty. It is he who most embodies the development of the documentary form as an objective tool of ethnography- -the scientific study of othercultures from a position "within" the community- -and anthropology.2.His film Nanook of the North (1922), a study of Inuits of northern anada, is acknowledged as one of the most influential films within the genre. It perhaps provides us with all the clues we require to define both the documentary and its acceptable limits. Flaherty's films, which have been called“authored" films, are made with a specific intent: not merely to record the lives of the Inuits but to recall and restage a former, more“primitive" era of Inuit life. This nostalgic intent only serves to mythologize Inuit life and to some extent remove it from its real context, thus calling into question some of the inherent principles that we may assume are crucial in determining documentary "truth."3.lthough Flaherty was an advocate of the use of lenses that could view the subject from a long distance so as not to affect unduly the behavior of the natives, and he filmed long, uninterrupted scenes at one time without stopping the camera instead of using complex editing, it is his intervention in the material that is most problematic when evaluating Nanook as a key documentary. Flaherty was not content merely to record events; he wanted to dramatize actuality by filming aspects of Inuit culture that he knew of from his earlier travels into the Hudson ay area between 1910 and 1916. For example, he rebuilt igloos to accommodate camera equipment and organized parts of Inuit lifestyle to suit the technical requirements of filming under these conditions. In another of his documentaries, Moana(1926), Flaherty staged a ritual tattooing ceremony among the Samoan Islanders, recalling a practice that had not been carried out for many years. In Man of ran (1935) shark hunts were also staged and did not characterize the contemporaryexistence of the ran Islanders.4.lthough Flaherty was an advocate of the use of lenses that could view the subject from a long distance so as not to affect unduly the behavior of the natives, and he filmed long, uninterrupted scenes at one time without stopping the camera instead of using complex editing, it is his intervention in the material that is most problematic when evaluating Nanook as a key documentary. Flaherty was not content merely to record events; he wanted to dramatize actuality by filming aspects of Inuit culture that he knew of from his earlier travels into the Hudson ay area between 1910 and 1916. For example, he rebuilt igloos to accommodate camera equipment and organized parts of Inuit lifestyle to suit the technical requirements of filming under these conditions. In another of his documentaries, Moana (1926), Flaherty staged a ritual tattooing ceremony among the Samoan Islanders, recalling a practice that had not been carried out for many years. In Man of ran (1935) shark hunts were also staged and did not characterize the contemporary existence of the ran Islanders.5.lthough Flaherty was an advocate of the use of lenses that could view the subject from a long distance so as not to affect unduly the behavior of the natives, and he filmed long, uninterrupted scenes at one time without stopping the camera instead of using complex editing, it is his intervention in the material that is most problematic when evaluating Nanook as a key documentary. Flaherty was not content merely to record events; he wanted to dramatize actuality by filming aspects of Inuit culture that he knew of from his earlier travels into the Hudson ay area between 1910 and 1916. For example, he rebuilt igloos to accommodate camera equipment and organized partsof Inuit lifestyle to suit the technical requirements of filming under these conditions. In another of his documentaries, Moana (1926), Flaherty staged a ritual tattooing ceremony among the Samoan Islanders, recalling a practice that had not been carried out for many years. In Man of ran (1935) shark hunts were also staged and did not characterize the contemporary existence of the ran Islanders.6.John Grierson, the ritish documentary maker, argues that Flaherty becomes intimate with the subject matter before he records it and thus,“He lives with his people till the story is told 'out of himself' and this enables him to 'make the primary distinction between a method which describes only the surface value of a subject and a method that more explosively reveals the reality of it."" This seems to legitimize Flaherty's approach because Nanook, Moana, and Man of ran all succeed in revealing the practices of more“primitive”cultures- cultures which in Flaherty's view embody a certain kind of simple and romanticized social perfection.7.learly then, Flaherty essentially uses actuality to illustrate dominant themes and interests that he is eager to explore. In some ways, Flaherty ignores the real social and political dimensions informing his subjects' lives and indeed does not engage with the darker side of human sensibility, preferring instead to prioritize larger, more mythic and universal topics. There is almost a nostalgic yearning in Flaherty's work to return to a simpler, more physical, preindustrial world, where humankind could pit itself against the natural world, slowly but surely harnessing its forces to positive ends. Families and communities are seen as stoic and noble in their endeavors, surviving often against terrible odds. Flaherty obviouslymanipulates his material and sums up one of the apparent ironies in creating documentary“truth" by suggesting that“Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit."8.learly then, Flaherty essentially uses actuality to illustrate dominant themes and interests that he is eager to explore. In some ways, Flaherty ignores the real social and political dimensions informing his subjects' lives and indeed does not engage with the darker side of human sensibility, preferring instead to prioritize larger, more mythic and universal topics. There is almost a nostalgic yearning in Flaherty's work to return to a simpler, more physical, preindustrial world, where humankind could pit itself against the natural world, slowly but surely harnessing its forces to positive ends. Families and communities are seen as stoic and noble in their endeavors, surviving often against terrible odds. Flaherty obviously manipulates his material and sums up one of the apparent ironies in creating documentary“truth" by suggesting that“Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit."9.His film Nanook of the North (1922), a study of Inuits of northern anada, is acknowledged as one of the most influential films within the genre.⬛It perhaps provides us with all the clues we require to define both the documentary and its acceptable limits.⬛Flaherty's films, which have been called“authored" films, are made with a specific intent: not merely to record the lives of the Inuits but to recall and restage a former, more“primitive" era of Inuit life. ⬛This nostalgic intent only serves to mythologize Inuit life and to some extent remove it from its real context, thus calling into question some of the inherent principles that we mayassume are crucial in determining documentary "truth."⬛10.。
雅思托福阅读(一)
The Triumph of UnreasonA.Neoclassical economics is built on the assumption that humans are rational beings who have a clear idea of their best interests and strive to extract maximum benefit (or “utility”, in economist-speak) from any situation. Neoclassical economics assumes that the process of decision-making is rational. But that contradicts growing evidence that decision-making draws on the emotions—even when reason is clearly involved.B.The role of emotions in decisions makes perfect sense. For situations met frequently in the past, such as obtaining food and mates, and confronting or fleeing from threats, the neural mechanisms required to weigh up the pros and cons will have been honed by evolution to produce an optimal outcome. Since emotion is the mechanism by which animals are prodded towards such outcomes, evolutionary and economic theory predict the same practical consequences for utility in these cases. But does this still apply when the ancestral machinery has to respond to the stimuli of urban modernity?C.One of the people who thinks that it does not is George Loewenstein, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. In particular, he suspects that modern shopping has subverted the decision-making machinery in a way that encourages people to run up debt. To prove the point he has teamed up with two psychologists, Brian Knutson of Stanford University and Drazen Prelec of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to look at what happens in the brain when it is deciding what to buy.D.In a study, the three researchers asked 26 volunteers to decide whether to buy a series of products such as a box of chocolates or a DVD of the television show that were flashed on a computer screen one after another. In each round of the task, the researchers first presented the product and then its price, with each step lasting four seconds. In the final stage, which also lasted four seconds, they asked the volunteers to make up their minds. While the volunteers were taking part in the experiment, the researchers scanned their brains using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This measures blood flow and oxygen consumption in the brain, as an indication of its activity.E.The researchers found that different parts of the brain were involved at different stages of the test. The nucleus accumbens was the most active part when a product was being displayed. Moreover, the level of its activity correlated with the reported desirability of the product in question.F.When the price appeared, however, fMRI reported more activityin other parts of the brain. Excessively high prices increased activity in the insular cortex, a brain region linked to expectations of pain, monetary loss and the viewing of upsetting pictures. The researchers also found greater activity in this region of the brain when the subject decided not to purchase an item.G.Price information activated the medial prefrontal cortex, too. This part of the brain is involved in rational calculation. In the experiment its activity seemed to correlate with a volunteer's reaction to both product and price, rather than to price alone. Thus, the sense of a good bargain evoked higher activity levels in the medial prefrontal cortex, and this often preceded a decision to buy.H.People's shopping behaviour therefore seems to have piggy-backed on old neural circuits evolved for anticipation of reward and the avoidance of hazards. What Dr Loewenstein found interesting was the separation of the assessment of the product (which seems to be associated with the nucleus accumbens) from the assessment of its price (associated with the insular cortex), even though the two are then synthesised in the prefrontal cortex. His hypothesis is that rather than weighing the present good against future alternatives, as orthodox economics suggests happens, people actually balance the immediate pleasure of the prospective possession of a product with the immediate pain of paying for it.I.That makes perfect sense as an evolved mechanism for trading. If one useful object is being traded for another (hard cash in modern time), the future utility of what is being given up is embedded in the object being traded. Emotion is as capable of assigning such a value as reason. Buying on credit, though, may be different. The abstract nature of credit cards, coupled with the deferment of payment that they promise, may modulate the “con”side of the calculation in favour of the “pro”.J.Whether it actually does so will be the subject of further experiments that the three researchers are now designing. These will test whether people with distinctly different spending behaviour, such as miserliness and extravagance, experience different amounts of pain in response to prices. They will also assess whether, in the same individuals, buying with credit cards eases the pain compared with paying by cash. If they find that it does, then credit cards may have to join the list of things such as fatty and sugary foods, and recreational drugs, that subvert human instincts in ways that seem pleasurable at the time but can have a long and malign aftertaste.Questions 1-6Do the following statemets reflect the claims of the writer inReading Passage 1?Write your answer in Boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.TRUE if the statement reflets the claims of the writer FALSE if the statement contradicts the claims of the writerNOT GIVEN if it is possbile to say what the writer thinks about this1. The belief of neoclassical economics does not accord with the increasing evidence that humans make use of the emotions to make decisions.2. Animals are urged by emotion to strive for an optimal outcomes or extract maximum utility from any situation.3. George Loewenstein thinks that modern ways of shopping tend to allow people to accumulate their debts.4. The more active the nucleus accumens was, the stronger the desire of people for the product in question became.5. The prefrontal cortex of the human brain is linked to monetary loss and the viewing of upsetting pictures.6. When the activity in nucleus accumbens was increased by the sense of a good bargain, people tended to purchase coffee. Questions 7-9Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 7-9 on your answe sheet.7. Which of the following statements about orthodox economics is true?A. The process which people make their decisions is rational.B. People have a clear idea of their best interests in any situation.C. Humans make judgement on the basis of reason rather then emotion.D. People weigh the present good against future alternatives in shopping.8. The word “miserliness”in line 3 of Paragraph J means__________.A. people's behavior of buying luxurious goodsB. people's behavior of buying very special itemsC. people's behavior of being very mean in shoppingD. people's behavior of being very generous in shopping9. The three researchers are now designing the future experiments, which testA. whether people with very different spending behaviour experience different amounts of pain in response to products.B. whether buying an item with credit cards eases the pain of the same individuals compared with paying for it by cash.C. whether the abstract nature of credit cards may modulate the “con” side of the calculation in favour of the “pro”.D. whether the credit cards may subvert human instincts in waysthat seem pleasurable but with a terrible effect.Questions 10-13Complete the notes below.Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from Reading Passage 1 for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.To find what happens in the brain of humans when it is decidingthings to buy, George Loewenstein and his co-researchers did an experiment by using the technique of fMRI. They found that differentparts of the brain were invloved in the process. The activity in 10 was greatly increased with the displaying of certain product. Thegreat activity was found in the insular cortex when 11 and the subject decided not to buy a product. The activity of the medial prefrontal cortex seemed to associate with both 12 informaiton. What interested Dr Loewenstein was the 13 of the assessment of the product and its price in different parts of the brain.Don't wash those fossils!Standard museum practice can wash away DNA.1. Washing, brushing and varnishing fossils-all standard conservation treatments used by many fossil hunters and museum curators alike-vastly reduces the chances of recovering ancient DNA.2. Instead, excavators should be handling at least some of their bounty with gloves, and freezing samples as they are found, dirt andall, concludes a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academyof Sciences today.3. Although many palaeontologists know anecdotally that this isthe best way to up the odds of extracting good DNA, Eva-Maria Geiglof the Jacques Monod Institute in Paris, France, and her colleagueshave now shown just how important conservation practices can be. This information, they say, needs to be hammered home among the peoplewho are actually out in the field digging up bones.4. Geigl and her colleagues looked at 3,200-year-old fossil bones belonging to a single individual of an extinct cattle species, calledan aurochs. The fossils were dug up at a site in France at two different times — either in 1947, and stored in a museum collection,or in 2004, and conserved in sterile conditions at -20 oC.5. The team's attempts to extract DNA from the 1947 bones allfailed. The newly excavated fossils, however, all yielded DNA.6. Because the bones had been buried for the same amount of time, and in the same conditions, the conservation method had to be to blame says Geigl. "As much DNA was degraded in these 57 years as in the 3,200 years before," she says.7. Because many palaeontologists base their work on the shape of fossils alone, their methods of conservation are not designed to preserve DNA, Geigl explains.8. The biggest problem is how they are cleaned. Fossils are often washed together on-site in a large bath, which can allow water and contaminants in the form of contemporary DNA — to permeate into the porous bones. "Not only is the authentic DNA getting washed out, but contamination is getting washed in," says Geigl.9. Most ancient DNA specialists know this already, says Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. But that doesn't mean that best practice has become widespread among those who actually find the fossils.10. Getting hold of fossils that have been preserved with their DNA in mind relies on close relationships between lab-based geneticists and the excavators, says palaeogeneticist Svante P bo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. And that only occurs in exceptional cases, he says.11. P bo's team, which has been sequencing Neanderthal DNA, continually faces these problems. "When you want to study ancient human and Neanderthal remains, there's a big issue of contamination with contemporary human DNA," he says.12. This doesn't mean that all museum specimens are fatally flawed, notes P bo. The Neanderthal fossils that were recently sequenced in his own lab, for example, had been part of a museum collection treated in the traditional way. But P bo is keen to see samples of fossils from every major find preserved in line with Geigl's recommendations — just in case.13. Geigl herself believes that, with cooperation between bench and field researchers, preserving fossils properly could open up avenues of discovery that have long been assumed closed.14. Much human cultural development took place in temperate regions. DNA does not survive well in warm environments in the first place, and can vanish when fossils are washed and treated. For this reason, Geigl says, most ancient DNA studies have been done on permafrost samples, such as the woolly mammoth, or on remains sheltered from the elements in cold caves — including cave bear and Neanderthal fossils.15. Better conservation methods, and a focus on fresh fossils, could boost DNA extraction from more delicate specimens, says Geigl.And that could shed more light on the story of human evolution.GlossaryPalaeontologists古生物学家Aurochs欧洲野牛Neanderthal(人类学)尼安德特人，旧石器时代的古人类Permafrost(地理)永冻层Questions 1-6Answer the following questions by using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.1. How did people traditionally treat fossils?2. What suggestions do Geigl and her colleagues give on what should be done when fossils are found?3. What problems may be posed if fossil bones are washed on-site? Name ONE.4. What characteristic do fossil bones have to make them susceptible to be contaminated with contemporary DNA when they are washed?5. What could be better understood when conservation treatments are improved?6. The passage mentioned several animal species studied by researchers. How many of them are mentioned?Questions 7-11Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? Please writeTRUE if the statement agrees with the writer FALSE if the statement does not agree with the writerNOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage7. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , Geigl and her colleagues have shown what conservation practices should be followed to preserve ancient DNA.8. The fossil bones that Geigl and her colleagues studied are all from the same aurochs.9. Geneticists don't have to work on site.10. Only newly excavated fossil bones using new conservation methods suggested by Geigl and her colleagues contain ancient DNA.11. Paabo is still worried about the potential problems caused by treatments of fossils in traditional way.Questions 12-13Complete the following the statements by choosing letter A-D for each answer.12. “This information” in paragraph 3 indicates:[A] It is critical to follow proper practices in preservingancient DNA.[B] The best way of getting good DNA is to handle fossils with gloves.[C] Fossil hunters should wear home-made hammers while digging up bones.[D] Many palaeontologists know how one should do in treating fossils.13. The study conducted by Geigl and her colleagues suggests:[A] the fact that ancient DNA can not be recovered from fossil bones excavated in the past.[B] the correlation between the amount of burying time and that of the recovered DNA.[C] the pace at which DNA degrades. the correlation between conservation practices and degradation of DNA.Why did a promising heart drug fail?Doomed drug highlights complications of meddling with cholesterol.1. The failure of a high-profile cholesterol drug has thrown a spotlight on the complicated machinery that regulates cholesterol levels. But many researchers remain confident that drugs to boost levels of ‘good' cholesterol are still one of the most promising means to combat spiralling heart disease.2. Drug company Pfizer announced on 2 December that it was cancelling all clinical trials of torcetrapib, a drug designed to raise heart-protective high-density lipoproteins (HDLs). In a trial of 15000 patients, a safety board found that more people died or suffered cardiovascular problems after taking the drug plus a cholesterol-lowering statin than those in a control group who took the statin alone.3. The news came as a kick in the teeth to many cardiologists because earlier tests in animals and people suggested it would lower rates of cardiovascular disease. "There have been no red flags to my knowledge," says John Chapman, a specialist in lipoproteins and atherosclerosis at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Paris who has also studied torcetrapib. "This cancellation came as a complete shock."4. Torcetrapib is one of the most advanced of a new breed of drugs designed to raise levels of HDLs, which ferry cholesterol out of artery-clogging plaques to the liver for removal from the body. Specifically, torcetrapib blocks a protein called cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP), which normally transfers the cholesterol from high-density lipoproteins to low density, plaque-promoting ones.Statins, in contrast, mainly work by lowering the ‘bad' low-density lipoproteins.5. Researchers are now trying to work out why and how the drug backfired, something that will not become clear until the clinical details are released by Pfizer. One hint lies in evidence from earlier trials that it slightly raises blood pressure in some patients. It was thought that this mild problem would be offset by the heart benefits of the drug. But it is possible that it actually proved fatal in some patients who already suffered high blood pressure. If blood pressure is the explanation, it would actually be good news for drug developers because it suggests that the problems are specific to this compound. Other prototype drugs that are being developed to block CETP work in a slightly different way and might not suffer the same downfall.6. But it is also possible that the whole idea of blocking CETP is flawed, says Moti Kashyap, who directs atherosclerosis research at the VA Medical Center in Long Beach, California. When HDLs excrete cholesterol in the liver, they actually rely on LDLs for part of this process. So inhibiting CETP, which prevents the transfer of cholesterol from HDL to LDL, might actually cause an abnormal and irreversible accumulation of cholesterol in the body. "You're blocking a physiologic mechanism to eliminate cholesterol and effectively constipating the pathway," says Kashyap.7. Most researchers remain confident that elevating high density lipoproteins levels by one means or another is one of the best routes for helping heart disease patients. But HDLs are complex and not entirely understood. One approved drug, called niacin, is known to both raise HDL and reduce cardiovascular risk but also causes an unpleasant sensation of heat and tingling. Researchers are exploring whether they can bypass this side effect and whether niacin can lower disease risk more than statins alone. Scientists are also working on several other means to bump up high-density lipoproteins by, for example, introducing synthetic HDLs. "The only thing we know is dead in the water is torcetrapib, not the whole idea of raising HDL," says Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore.Questions 1-7This passage has 7 paragraphs 1-7.Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.Write the correct number i-ix in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.List of Headingsi. How does torcetrapib work?ii. Contradictory result prior to the current trialiii. One failure may possibly bring about future successiv. The failure doesn't lead to total loss of confidencev. It is the right route to followvi. Why it's stoppedvii. They may combine and theoretically produce ideal result viii. What's wrong with the drugix. It might be wrong at the first placeExample answerParagraph 1 iv1. Paragraph 22. Paragraph 33. Paragraph 44. Paragraph 55. Paragraph 66. Paragraph 7Questions 8-14Match torcetrapib，HDLs，statin and CETP with their functions (Questions 8-14)..Write the correct letter A, B, C or D in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.NB You may use any letter more than once.8.It has been administered to over 10,000 subjects in a clinical trial.9.It could help rid human body of cholesterol.10.Researchers are yet to find more about it.11. It was used to reduce the level of cholesterol.12. According to Kashyap, it might lead to unwanted result if it's blocked.13. It produced contradictory results in different trials.14. It could inhibit LDLs.List of choicesA. TorcetrapicB. HDLSC. StatinD. CETP。
月日托福机经
2009年1月10日托福机经1月10日托福机经阅读：第一篇： functionism(忘了是这个词还是functional) culture第一段先举了生物学的例子，这里有题，问为什么要举生物学的例子。
大概就是典型的结构主义思想，每一个器官都是有功能的。
引出文化，文化也一样，不是无缘无故的。
然后给出了两个人的观点。
第一个人的意思是每一个文化主要取决于大众的需要，并且大众的需要分两层，第一是basic demand，衣食住行，第二层是宗教，政治还是什么的。
但是这个理论有缺陷，就是他不能解释为什么每个文化都需要解决基本需求问题，但是文化和文化之间不一样呢。
另一个人的观点是文化是用来消除亲家之间的conflict的，后面记得不是很清楚，不敢乱说了。
最后貌似说了这两个观点都不是完美的第二篇：讲古代人的畜牧史，貌似就是说古代人掌握了动物什么时候来喝水，然后就趁机下手逮动物。
其中两个概念很混乱，breeding和domestication，想死的感觉啊……!记得比较清楚的是说，他们并不是每种动物都养，经过了很多代人的经验，才放弃了一些不好养的动物。
第三篇：美国觉得污染会杀死鱼，于是设立了sanctum，但是在这里面可以捕鱼。
所以造成了过度捕捞，过度捕捞比起污染什么的对鱼的数量下降来说更致命。
鱼随之会变得更少，并且更小。
外界环境也会影响鱼，温度，气候什么的。
鱼类有丰富营养，比如鳗鱼什么的，每年增长速度貌似才5%，但是每年增加的需求量就有15%。
然后说了中国养了很多鱼。
最后说了海藻，海藻繁殖快，营养高，相比之下，农产品生产过程很慢。
日本就养海藻。
加试：电报电话在欧洲和美国的发展，鸟类学说话1月10日托福机经听力：1. 学生放假忘了cancel电话服务，暑假的时候貌似他的宿舍有人住，电话打爆了，她的电话费就奇高无比。
但是她和电话公司签了合同，上面有说了不用要自己cancel的。
最后老师说可以帮助联系下暑假住的学生，但是如果联系不到，那个女生就要自掏电话费了。
托福阅读tpo63R-1原文+译文+题目+答案+背景知识
TPO63阅读-1The Sumerians and Regional Interdependence原文 (1)译文 (3)题目 (4)答案 (8)背景知识 (9)原文The Sumerians and Regional Interdependence①With the emergence of the Sumerian civilization in about 3100 B.C., a new era in human experience began-one in which the economic, political, and social mechanisms created by humans began to affect the lives of cities, towns, and villages located hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles apart. In a real sense, a rapidly evolving world system linked hundreds of Southwest Asian societies all the way from modern-day eastern Iran to the eastern Mediterranean and the Nile Valley. This nascent world system developed as a result of insatiable demands for nonlocal raw materials in different ecological regions where societies were developing along very similar evolutionary tracks toward greater complexity. In each area,social developments and technological innovations were triggered not only by basic economic needs but also by the competitive instincts of newly urbanized elites, who used lavish display and exotic luxuries to reaffirm their social prestige and authority. Sumerian civilization is a mirror of this developing regional interdependence.②Sumerian civilization came into being as a result of a combination of environmental and social factors. The Sumerians lived in a treeless, lowland environment with fertile soils but no metal, little timber, and no semiprecious stones. They obtained these commodities by trading with areas where such items were in abundance. Sumerian rulers controlled not only large grain surpluses that could be moved in river craft but also a flourishing industry in textiles and other luxuries. The trade moved up and down the great rivers,especially the placid Euphrates. Ancient overland trade routes linked the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with the distant cities and ports in the Levant (eastern Mediterranean area). Even as early as Sumerian times, caravans of pack animals joined Anatolia to the Euphrates, the Levant to Mesopotamia, and Mesopotamia to isolated towns on thedistant Iranian highlands to the east.③Bronze technology produced tougher-edged, more durable artifacts that could be used for more arduous day-to-day tasks. One resulting innovation was the metal- and wood- tipped plow, an implement dragged by oxen that was capable of digging a far deeper furrow than the simple hoes and digging sticks of earlier times. The plow was developed as irrigation agriculture assumed greater importance in Sumer, and the combined innovations increased agricultural yields dramatically. These yields not only supported larger urban and rural populations but also provided a means for the rulers of city-states both in Sumer and farther afield to exercise more control over food surpluses and over the wealth obtained by long-distance exchange.④An intricate and ever-changing system of political alliances and individual obligations of friendship linked community with community and city-state with city-state. In time, financial and logistical checks and balances were maintained by an administrative system based in the temples to bring order to what had begun as informal bartering. Specialized merchants began to handle such commodities as copper and lapis lazuli, a semiprecious stone. There was wholesaling and contracting, loans were floated, and individual profit was a prime motivation. Increasingly, every city-state, and even entire civilizations, came to depend on the world system,not so much for political stability but for survival.⑤As the volume of long-distance trade increased dramatically, so competition over resources intensified. Each state raised an army to defend its water rights, trade routes, and city walls. The onerous tasks of defense and military organization passed to despotic kings supposedly appointed by the gods. Such Sumerian city-states as Erech, Kish, and Ur had periods of political strength and prosperity when they dominated their neighbors. Then, just as swiftly, the tide of their fortunes would change and they would sink into obscurity.⑥Inevitably, the ambitions of some proud Sumerian leaders led them to entertain bolder visions than merely the control of a few city-states in the lowlands. They were well aware that the control of lucrative sources of raw materials and trade routes was the secret of vast political power. In about 2400 B.C. , a monarch named Lugalzagesi boasted of overseeing the entire area from the Persian Gulf tothe Mediterranean. This boast was probably false. It is likely that Sumerian cities dominated the overland routes that linked Mesopotamia, Anatolia,and the Levant, but their influence was never permanent, their control probably illusory.译文苏美尔人与区域相互依存①随着公元前3100年左右苏美尔文明的出现，人类历史中的一个新时代开始了——人类创造的经济、政治和社会机制开始影响相隔数百甚至数千英里的城市、城镇和村庄的生活。
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智课网TOEFL备考资料
托福阅读机经背景文化类：走出我们世界的背影-老虎
1987年6月6日，最后一只黑海雀死去后，这种南美洲特有的雀科鸣鸟就此灭绝——在地球上永远永远地消
失了。物种灭绝，这种永远消失的事情貌似与神学的轮回论想悖离，但是却时刻都在发生着。
Only 350 wild tigers remain in Asia’s Mekong River region, according to a new report from the conservation nonprofit
WWF, which says the loss is being driven by trade in tiger parts.
he numbers of tigers in the wild in Southeast Asia have dropped by more than 70 percent in a little more than a
decade.
That’s the claim in a new report from the WWF. The organization says there were an estimated 12-hundred tigers in
the Greater Mekong region during the last “Year of the Tiger” in 1998. Today, WWF estimates there are only about 350
there.
Wild tigers have even been wiped out in several reserves set up to protect them.
The Greater Mekong region includes China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The reason for the drop? WWF says the tiger crisis has developed because of deliberate and large-scale illegal
hunting of tigers for body parts, mostly for use in traditional medicine. Here, tiger parts are seen displayed for sale on a
street in Bangkok.
Enforcement of poaching has had limited success, such as these scenes from Vietnam where illegally poached tigers
and carcasses were confiscated by authorities. The WWF hopes to raise awareness and funds to stop the poaching.
According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. And later this month, ministers from 13 tiger range
countries will meet in Thailand for a conference on tiger conservation. It’s hoped the governments will agree on future
needs in protecting this big cat from extinction.
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