托福模拟题：TPO1 听力文字

TPO1

Narrator

Listen to part of a conversation between a student and alibrarian.

Student

Hi, um…, I really hope you can help me.

Librarian

That’s why I’m here. What can I do for you?

Student

I’m supposed to do a literature review for my psychologycourse, but I’m… having a hard time findingarticles. I don’t even know where to start looking.

Librarian

You said this is for your psychology course, right? So yourfocus is on …

Student

Dream Interpretation.

Librarian

Well, you have a focus, so that’s already a good start.Hmmm… well, there’re a few things… oh wait… have you checked to see if yourprofessor put any material for you to look at on reserve?

Student

Aha, that’s one thing I did know to do. I just copied anarticle, but I still need three more on my topic from three different journals.

Librarian

Let’s get you going on looking for those then. We have printedversions of twenty or so psychology journalsin the Reference Section. These are ones published within the last year. Now thatI think about it… there’s a journal named Sleep and Dreams.

Student

Oh, yeah, the article I just copied is from that journal, soI’ve got to look in other sources.

Librarian

Ok, actually, most of our materials are availableelectronically now. You can access psychology databases or electronic journalsand articles through the library’s computers, and if you want to search by titlewith the word ‘dream’ for example, just type it in and all the articles with‘dream’ in the title will come up on the screen.

Student

Cool, that’s great! Too bad I cannot do this from home.

Librarian

But you can. All of the library’s databases and electronicsources can be accessed through any computer connected to the universitynetwork.

Student

Really?! I can’t believe I didn’t know that. It still soundslike it’s going to take a while though, you know, going through all of thatinformation, all of those sources.

Librarian

Maybe, but you already narrowed your search downto articles on Dream Interpretation, so it shouldn’t be too bad. And youprobably notice that there’s an abstract or summary at the top of the firstpage of the article you copied. When you go into the databases and electronicsources, you have the option to display the abstracts on the computer screen,skimming those to decide whether or not you want to read the whole articleshould cut down some time.

Student

Right, abstracts! They’ll definitely make the project more doable.I guess I should try out the electronic search while I’m still here then, youknow, just in case.

Librarian

Sure, er… that computer’s free over there, and I’ll be heretill five this afternoon.

Student

Thanks, I feel a lot better about this assignment now.

Listen to part of a lecture in a contemporary art class.

Professor

Ok, I’m going to begin this lecture by giving you your nextassignment. Remember I said that at some point during this semester I wantedyou to attend an exhibit at the Fairy Street Gallery and then write about it?Well, the exhibit that I want you to attend is coming up. It’s already started infact, but it’ll be at the gallery for the next month, which should give youplenty of time to complete this assignment.

The name of the artist exhibiting there is Rose Frantzen.Frantzen’s work may be unfamiliar to you since she’s a relatively young artist.But she’s got a very unusual style, compared to some of the artists we’velooked at this term. But anyway, Frantzen’s style is what she herself calls RealisticImpressionism. So you’ve probably studied both of these movements separately, separatemovements, Realism and Impressionism, in some of your art history courses. Sowho can just sum these up?

Student

Well, Impressionism started in the late 19th century. Um…thebasic impressionist style was very different from earlier styles. It didn’tdepict scenes or models exactly as they looked. Um… Impressionist painterstended to apply paint really thickly, and in big brushstrokes, so the texture ofthe canvas was rough.

Professor

Good. What else? What were the subjects?

Student

Well, a lot of impressionist artists painted everydayscenes, like people on the streets and in cafes, uh, lots of naturescenes, especially landscapes.

Professor

Good. So when you go to the exhibit, I really want you totake a close look at a certain painting. It’s a farm scene. And you will see itright as you enter the gallery. The reason I think this painting is soimportant is that it stresses the impressionist aspect of Frantzen’s style.It’s an outdoor scene, an everyday scene. It’s kind of bleak, butyou can really see those broad brushstrokes and the blurry lines. The colorsaren’t quite realistic. The sky is kind of, well , an unnatural … pinkishyellow. And the fence in the foreground is blue, but somehow the overall scenegives an impression of a cold, bleak, winter day on a farm. So that’s theimpressionist side of her work.

Oh, and speaking about farms, that reminds me. Oneinteresting thing I read about Franzten is that when she first moved back toIowa after living abroad, she often visited this place in her town called theSales Barn. And the Sales Barn, it was basically this place where the localfarmers bought and sold their cattle, their farm animals. And the reasonFrantzen went there, and she later on would visit other places like dancehalls, was to observe people and the ways that they moved. She really foundthat this helped her work---that it gave her an understanding of body movementsand actions, how humans move, and stand still, what their postures were like,too.

So, what about Realism? What are the elements of Realism weshould be looking for in Frantzen’s work?

Student

Um… real honest depictions of subject matter, prettyunidealized stuff, and pretty everyday subject matter, too.

Professor

Good. One other painting I really want you to look at is ofa young woman surrounded by pumpkins. You will notice that the woman’s face isso realistic looking that it’s almost like a photograph. The woman’s nose is alittle less than perfect and her hair is kind of messed up. This is realism.But then, the background of the painting, this woman with the pumpkins iswrapped in a blanket of broad thick brushstrokes, and, it’s all kinds ofzigzagging brushstrokes and lines, kind of chaotic almost when you look at itclose. And there are vibrant colors. There’s lots of orange, with little hintsof an electric blue peeking out.

I find Frantzen to be a very accessible artist. I mean, someartists, to appreciate them, you have to know their life story. But here’s alittle bit about Rose Frantzen’s life anyway. She attended art school, but wastold by one of her instructors that she was not good at illustration, that she shouldgo into advertising instead. So she took advertising classes and fine artsclasses too, until she was convinced by the head of an advertising agency thather work was really good, that she could be an artist. But of course, it’s notas easy as that, and so Frantzen had to paint other people’s portraits atplaces like art fairs just to make money to buy paint for her more serious artwork. No matter what, she never stopped painting. And now, Frantzen is doing extremelywell. And her work is being shown all over the country. So I think most of uswould be discouraged if we had to face challenges and difficulties like that.But what’s important is that you keep at it that you don’t give up. That’s whatis really important to remember.

Listen to part of a lecture in a geology class.

Professor

Ok, let’s get started. Great. Today I want to talk about away in which we are able to determine how old a piece of land, or some othergeologic feature is - dating techniques. I’m going to talk about a particulardating technique. Why? Good dating is key to good analysis. In other words, ifyou want to know how a land formation was formed, the first thing you probablywant to know is how old it is. It’s fundamental.

Uh… Take the Grand Canyon for instance.Now, we geologists thought we had a pretty good idea of how the Grand Canyon inthe southwestern United States was formed. We knew that it was formed fromsandstone that solidified somewhere between 150 and 300 million years ago. Beforeit solidified, it was just regular sand. Essentially it was part of a vastdesert. And until just recently, most of us thought the sand had come from anancient mountain range fairly close by that flattened out over time. That’sbeen the conventional wisdom among geologists for quite some time.

But now we’ve learned something different, and quitesurprising, using a technique called Uranium-Lead Dating. I should say thatUranium-Lead Dating has been around for quite a while. But there have been somerecent refinements. I will get into this in a minute. Anyway, Uranium-LeadDating has producedsome surprises. Two geologists discovered that about half of the sand from theGrand Canyon was actually once part of the AppalachianMountains. That’s really eye-opening news, since the Appalachian Mountain Rangeis, of course, thousands of kilometers to the east of the Grand Canyon. Soundspretty unbelievable, right? Of course, the obvious question is how did thatsand end up so far west? The theory is that huge rivers and wind carried thesand west where it mixed in with the sand that was already there.

Well, this was a pretty revolutionary finding. Um… and itwas basically because of Uranium-Lead Dating. Why? Well, as everyone in thisclass should know, we usually look at the grain type within sandstone, meaningthe actual particles in the sandstone, to determine where it came from. You cando other things too, like look at the wind or water that brought the grains totheir location and figure out which way it was flowing. But that’s only usefulup to a point, and that’s not what these two geologists did.

Uranium-Lead Dating allowed them to go about it in anentirely different way. What they did was: they looked at the grains of Zirconin the sandstone. Zircon is a material that contains radioactive Uranium, whichmakes it very useful for dating purposes. Zircon starts off as molten magma,the hot lava from volcanoes. This magma then crystallizes. And when Zirconcrystallizes, the Uranium inside it begins to change into Lead. So if youmeasure the amount of Lead in the Zircon grain, you can figure out when thegrain was formed. After that, you can determine the age of Zircon fromdifferent mountain ranges. Once you do that, you can compare the age of the Zirconin the sandstone in your sample to the age of the Zircon in the mountains. Ifthe age of the Zircon matches the age of one of the mountain ranges, then itmeans the sandstone actually used to be part of that particular mountain range.Is everybody with me on that? Good. So, in this case, Uranium-Lead Dating wasused to establish that half of the sandstone in the samples was formed at thesame time the granite in the Appalachian Mountains was formed. So because ofthis, this new way of doing Uranium-Lead Dating, we’ve been able to determinethat one of our major assumptions about the Grand Canyon was wrong.

Like I said before, Uranium-Lead Dating has been with us fora while. But, um… until recently, in order to do it, you really had to studymany individual grains. And it took a long time before you got results. It justwasn’t very efficient. And it wasn’t very accurate. But technical advances havecut down on the number of grains you have to study, so you get your resultsfaster. So I’ll predict that Uranium-Lead Dating is going to become anincreasingly popular dating method.

There are a few pretty exciting possibilities forUranium-Lead Dating. Here is one that comes to mind. You know the theory thatearth’s continents were once joined together and only split apart relatively recently? Well, withUranium-Lead Dating, we could prove that more conclusively. If they showevidence of once having been joined, that could really tell us a lot about theearly history of the planet’s geology.

Narrator

Listen to part of a conversation between a student and hisprofessor.

Professor

Hi Mathew, I’m glad you could come intoday. You’ve been observing Mr. Grable’s third-grade class for your approachesto education paper, right?

Student

,Um, yes. I go over toJohnson Elementary School, you know, to watch Mr. Grable teach the children inclass. It’s been amazing, I mean, I’m just learning so much from just watchinghim. I’m so glad the classroom observations are a requirement for the educationprogram. I mean it’s like the best thing ever to prepare you to be a goodteacher.

Professor

Well, I’m glad to see you feel that way, Mathew. You know,that’s the goal. So, I’ve been reading over your observation notes and I’mquite interested in what’s going on, in particular with the astronomyunit he’s been teaching.

Student

The astronomy unit?

Professor

It seems that Mr. Grable has mastered the interdisciplinaryapproach to teaching —that we’ve beentalking about in class.

Student

Oh! OK, yeah, so like when he was teaching them astronomy,he didn't just teach them the names of the planets, he used it as a way toteach mythology.

Professor

Really! So, how did he do that?

Student

Well, some of the students could already name the planets,but they didn’t know that the names had any meaning — the stories behind them.

Professor

So, he…

Student

He introduced Greek and Roman mythology as a way ofexplaining. Like, you know, how like Jupiter’s the biggest planet, right, andhow Jupiter was the name of the king of the gods in Roman mythology, right? Sosince Jupiter, the planet, is the largest planet in our solar system, it’s likethe king of the planets, like Jupiter was the king of all the gods.

Professor

Oh, Mathew, that’s a great example.

Student

Yeah! And each student chose a planet and then did researchon it to write a report and make a presentation. They went to the library to dothe research, then they made presentations about the planet they chose.

Professor

So, in one science unit, in which the focus was astronomy,the students also learned about the literature of Greek and Roman mythology,used research skills in the library, wrote a report and practiced their oralpresentation skills.

Student

Exactly! He used this one topic to teach third-gradersall that stuff — how to use the books in the library, to write reports, andeven how to speak in public. Plus they had a great time doing it.

Professor

You know, Mathew, this is just what we’ve been talking aboutin our class. I’m sure everyone can learn something from your experience. Youknow, Mathew, I’d love for you to talk about this astronomy unit in class onWednesday.

Student

Really?! Um… ‘cause I don’t really think I’llhave any time to write my paper by then.

Professor

Oh, you won’t need to write anything new just yet. ForWednesday, use your class observation notes and explain the things we’vediscussed today.

Student

Ok, that sounds all right.

Listen to part of a lecture in an archeology class.

Professor

OK, we’ve been talking about early agriculture in the neareast. So let’s concentrate on one site and see what we can learn from it. Let’slook at Catalhoyuk. Um… I’d better write that down. Catalhoyuk,that’s about as close as we get in English. It’s Turkish, really. The site’sin modern day Turkey, and who knows what the original inhabitants called it.Anyway, uh…Catalhoyuk wasn’t the first agricultural settlement in the neareast, but it was pretty early, settled about 9,000 years ago inthe Neolithic period. And ... um... the settlement...uh...town really,lasted about a thousand years and grew to a size of about eight or ten thousandpeople. That certainly makes it one of the largest towns in the world at thattime.

One of the things that make the settlement of this sizeimpressive is the time period. It’s the Neolithic, remember, the late StoneAge. So the people that lived there had only stone tools, no metals. Soeverything they accomplished, like building this town, they did with juststone, plus wood, bricks, that sort of thing. But you got to remember that itwasn’t just any stone they had, theyhad obsidian. And um... obsidian is a black, volcanic, well, almost like glass.It flakes very nicely into really sharp points. The sharpest tools of theentire Stone Age were made of obsidian. And uh... the people ofCatalhoyuk got theirs from further inland, from central Turkey, traded for it,probably.

Anyway, what I wanna focus on is the way the town was built.The houses are all rectangular, one storey, made of sun- driedbricks. But what’s really interesting is that there are no spaces between them,no streets in other words, and so generally no doors on the houses either.People walked around on the roofs and entered the house through a hatchway onthe roof, down a wooden ladder. You can still see the diagonal marks of theladders in the plaster on the inside walls. Once you were in the house, therewould be one main room and a couple of small rooms for storage. The main roomhad the hearths, for cooking and for heat. It would’ve been pretty cold duringthe winters. And it also looks like they made their tools near the fire. Theretends to be a lot of obsidian flakes and chips in the hearth ashes, but nochimney. The smoke just went out the same hatchway that people used for goingin and out themselves. So there would have been an open fire inside the housewith only one hole in the roof to let the smoke out. You and I would have foundit a bit too smoky in there. You can see on the walls, which they plastered anddecorated with paintings. They ended up with a layer of black soot on them, andso did people’s lungs. The bones found in the graves show a layer of soot onthe inside of the ribs.

And that’s another unusual feature of Catalhoyuk, the burialsites. The graves have all been found under the houses, right under the floors.And it maybe this burial custom that explains why the houses were packed in sotightly without streets. I mean, you might think it was for protection orsomething, but there has been no evidence found yet of any violent attack that wouldindicate that kind of danger. It maybe they wanted to live as near as possibleto their ancestors’ graves and be buried near them themselves. But it makes a goodpoint. Based on excavations, we can know the layout of the houses and thelocation of the graves, but we’re only guessing when we tried to say why theydid it that way. That’s the way it is with archeology. You are dealing with thephysical remains that people left behind. We have no sure access to what theythought and how they felt about things. I mean it’s interesting to speculate. Andthe physical artifacts can give us clues, but there is a lot we can’t reallyknow. So, for instance, their art. They painted on the plastered walls andusually they painted hunting scenes with wild animals in them. Now they didhunt and they also raised cereal crops and kept sheep, but we don’t know why somany of the paintings are of hunting scenes. Was it supposed to have religiousor magical significance? That’s the kind of thing we can only guess at based onclues. And hopefully, further excavation of Catalhoyuk will yield more clues.But we’ll probably never know for sure.

Narrator

Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.

Professor

For today’s discussion, we’ll review the case study on howsome animals have behaviorally adapted to their environments. Now you had toread about two animal species, the Eastern marmot and the Olympic marmot.Marmots are rodents. They are large ground squirrels, about the size of anaverage house cat. And they live in a variety of habitats. And even though theyspend the significant portion of the year hibernating, according to this casestudy, marmots are still considered excellent subjects for animal behavioralstudies. Why is that?

Student

Well, when they are not hibernating, you can find them inopen areas. And they are pretty active

during the day, which makes them easy to observe, right?

Professor

Uh-huh, so first let’s discuss theEastern marmots. They reside throughout the eastern region of North Americawhere there is a temperate climate, where the growing season lasts for at leastfive months of the year, which is when they do all their mating, playing andeating.

Student

Oh, I see. At first I wasn’t sure what growing season meant,just from the reading. But now I get it. It's the amount of time it takes forthem to grow, right? So it would be five months?

Professor

Umm? Oh, uh… I’m sorry but no. It has nothing to do withthat. It's not about the time it takes for Eastern marmots to grow. It’s whenthe food is available. That is when it’s not covered in snow and there is nofrost covering the grass and, umm, vegetative parts of a plant’s herbs and theflowers the marmots like to eat. So growing season refers to the availabilityof the food they eat, OK? So now how would you describe the Eastern marmots’social habits?

Student

Well, they are really territorial, and loners, and just soaggressive even with other Eastern

marmots. And their mating ritual is just so impersonal.

Professor

Uh-huh? Now when they emerge in the springfrom hibernation, the mating process begins. For them, well, they come togetherto mate and then they go their separate ways. Then about six to eight weeksafter birth, the offspring leave their mothers.

Student

Really? Just six weeks? Is that possible for the offspringto make it on their own so young?

Professor

Well, it’s not as if they aren’t ready for the real worldbecause they are. Remember, they mature quickly and the weather’s nice. Alsothey live in open fields where there is lots of edible vegetation. So roughlysix weeks after birth, Eastern marmots are just old enough to take their chancesof surviving in the temperate environment. So how does this relate to theirbehavior?

Student

Oh, I get it. Since the climate’s not too bad, the Easternmarmots don't have to rely on each other too much and they really don't need tostay together as a family to survive either.

Professor

Uh-ha. Any contrast, the Olympic marmots? What about them?

Student

Well, they live together as a family and take care of theiryoung until they are at least two years old. They’re really friendly with eachother. And what I really like is that they even have greeting ceremonies. Andthey are not at all aggressive and territorial like the Eastern marmots. Sotheir social behavior is so different from Eastern marmots because of theclimate where they live? That seems so bizarre.

Professor

Well, the Olympic marmots inhabit meadows high in theOlympic Mountains where the weather conditions are much harsher. So there is alot more wind and snow. The growing season only lasts about two to threemonths. So in that much shorter period of time, all the Olympic marmots, maleand female, eat, play, work and nurture the young together. Because the climateis so harsh, cooperation increases the survival rate of the Olympic marmots.They keep their young at home until they are physically able to survive on theirown. This could explain why the social behavior of the Olympic marmots is sounlike that of the Eastern marmots.