【IBT听力分析】香草鱼的听力帖

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 14 Conversation 1

Narrator:
Listen to a conversation between a student and the librarian employee.

Student:
Hi, I am looking for this book---the American judicial system. And I can’t seem to find
it anywhere.main purpose I need to read a chapter for my political science class.

Librarian:
Let me check in the computer. Um… doesn’t seem to be checked out and it’s not on
reserve. You’ve checked the shelves I assume.

Student:
Yeah, I even checked other shelves and tables next to where the book should be.

Librarian:

Well, it’s still here in the library. So people must be using it. You know this seems to
be a very popular book tonight. We show six copies. None are checked out. And, yet
you didn’t even find one copy on the shelves. Is it a big class?

Student:
Maybe about Seventy Five?

Librarian:
Well, you should ask your professor to put some of the copies on reserve. You know
about the ‘Reserve system’, right?

Student:
I know that you have to read reserve books in the library and that you have time
limits. But I didn’t know that I could ask a professor to put a book on the reserve. I
mean I thought the professors make that kind of decisions at the beginning of the
semester.

Librarian:
Oh… they can put books on reserve at anytime during the semester.

Student:
You know reserving book seems a bit unfair. What if someone who is not in the class
wants to use the book?

Librarian:
That’s why I said some copies.语气题

Student:
Ah, well, I’ll certainly talk to my professor about it tomorrow. But what I am gonna do
tonight?

Librarian:
I guess you could walk around the Poli-Sci ----- ‘Political Science’ section and look at
the books waiting to be re-shelved.

Student:
There are do seem to be more than normal.

Librarian:
We are a little short of staff right now. Someone quit recently, so things aren’t getting
re-shelved as quickly as usual. I don’t think they’ve hired replacement yet, so, yeah,
the un-shelved books can get a bit out of hand.

Student:
This may sound a bit weird. But I’ve been thinking about getting a job. Um… I’ve
never worked at the library before, But…..

Librarian:
That’s not a requirement. The job might still be open. At the beginning of the
semester we were swamped with applications, but I guess everyone who wants the
job has one by now.

Student:
What can you tell me about the job?

Librarian:
Well, we work between six and ten hours a week, so it’s a reasonable amount.
Usually we can pick the hours we want to work. But since you’d be starting so late in
the semester, I’m not sure how that would work for you. And… Oh… we get paid the
normal university rates for student employees.

Student:
So who do I talk to?

Librarian:
I guess you talk to Dr. Jenkins, the head librarian. She does the hiring.


TPO 14 Lecture 1 Psychology

Narrator:
Listen to part of a lecture in a psychology class

Professor:
We’ve said that the term “Cognition” refers to mental states like: knowing and
believing, and to mental processes that we use to arrive at those states. So for
example, reasoning is a cognitive process, so it’s perception.扯闲话,提供背景 We use information that
we perceive through our senses to help us make decisions to arrive at beliefs and so
on. And then there are memory and imagination which relate to the knowledge of
things that happen in the past and may happen in the future. So perceiving,
remembering, imagining are all internal mental processes that lead to knowing or
believing. 直接进入issue,没有明显的信号词Yet, each of these processes has limitations, and can lead us to hold
mistaken believes or make false predictions. Take memory for example, maybe you
have heard of studies in which people hear a list of related words. Ah…, let`s say a list
of different kinds of fruit.后面一段考false memory例子 After hearing this list, they are presented with several
additional words. In this case, we`ll say the additional words were “blanket” and
“cheery”. Neither of these words was on the original list, and, well, people will claim
correctly that “blanket” was not on the original list, they’ll also claim incorrectly that
the word “cheery” was on the list. Most people are convinced they heard the word
“cheery” on the original list. Why do they make such a simple mistake? Well, we
think because the words on the list were so closely related, the brain stored only the
gist of what they heard. For example, that all the items on the list were types of the
fruit. When we tap our memory, our brains often fill in details and quite often these
details are actually false. We also see this “fill-in” phenomenon with perception.
Perception is the faculty that allows us to process information in the present as we
take it via our senses. Again, studies have shown that people will fill in information
that they thought they perceived even when they didn`t. For example, experiments
have been done where a person hears a sentence, but it is missing the word, that
logically completes it. They’ll claim to hear that word even though it was never said.
So if I were to say…er…the sunrise is in the…and then fill to complete the sentence,
people will often claim to have heard the word “east”.
In cognitive psychology, we have a phrase for this kind of inaccurate “filling in of
details”--- it’s called: A Blind Spot. The term originally refers to the place in our eyes
where the optic nerve connects the back of the eye to the brain. There are no photo
receptors in the area where the nerve connects to the eye. So that particular area of
the eye is incapable of detecting images. It produces “A Blind Spot” in our field vision.
We are unaware of it, because the brain fills in what it thinks belongs in its image, so
the picture always appears complete to us. But the term “blind spot” has also taken
on a more general meaning--- it refers to people being unaware of a bias that may
affect their judgment about the subject. And the same “blind-spot phenomenon”
that affects memory and perception also affects imagination. Imagination is a faculty
that some people use to anticipate future events in their lives. But the ease with
which we imagine details can lead to unrealistic expectations and can bias our
decisions.
So…er…Peter, suppose I ask you to image a lunch salad, no problem, right? But I bet
you imagine specific ingredients. Did yours have tomatoes, Onion, Lettuce? mine did?语气题
Our brains fill in all sorts of details that might not be part of other people’s image of a
salad, which could lead to disappointment for us. If the next time we order a salad in
a restaurant, we have our imagined salad in mind, that’s not necessarily what we’ll
get on our plate. The problem is not that we imagine things, but that we assume
what we’ve imagined is accurate. We should be aware that our imagination has this
built-in feature, the blind spot, which makes our predictions fall short of reality.

TPO 14 Lecture 2 Biology

Narrator:

Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.

Professor:

Almost all animals have some way of regulating their body temperature; otherwise
they wouldn’t survive extreme hot or cold conditions---sweating, panting, swimming
to cooler or warmer water; ducking into somewhere cool like a burrow or a hole
under a rock; these are just a few. And that’s body is colder or warmer than the
surrounding environment, because it’s a microclimate.这篇介绍新概念,microclimate
A microclimate is a group of climate conditions that affect the localized area, weather
features like temperature, wind, moisture and so on. And when I say localized, I
mean really localized, because microclimates can be, as the name suggests, pretty
small, even less than a square meter. And microclimates are affected by huge
number of other variables. Obviously weather conditions in the surrounding areas
are a factor. But other aspects of the location like, um… the elevation of the land, the
plant life nearby, and so on, have a substantial effect on microclimates. And of course
the human development in the area, eh, a road will affect a nearby microclimate. It’s
also interesting to know that microclimates thither or near each other can have very
different conditions. In the forest for example, there can be a number of very
different microclimates close to each other, because of all the variables I just
mentioned.

Student:

So how does a hole in the ground, a burrow, stay cool in a hot climate?

Professor:

Well, since cold air sinks, and these spots are shaded, they are usually much cooler
than the surrounding area. And these spots are so important because many animals
rely on microclimates to regulate their body temperature. Hmm, for instance, there is
a species of squirrel,考例子 in the Western part of the United States that can get really hot
when they were out foraging for food. So they need a way to cool down. So what’d
they do? They go back to their own burrow. Once they get there, their body
temperatures decrease very, very quickly. The trip to the burrow prevents the
squirrel from getting too hot.

Student:

But squirrels are mammals, right? I thought mammals regulate their temperature
internally.

Professor:

Mammals do have the ability to regulate their body temperature, but not all can do it
to the same degree, or even the same way. Like when you walk outside on a hot day,
you perspire, and your body cools itself down, a classic example of how mammal
regulates its own body temperature. But one challenge that squirrels face, well many
small mammals do, is that because of their size, sweating would make them lose too
much moisture. They dehydrate. But on the other hand, their small size allows them
to fit into very tiny spaces. So for small mammals, microclimates can make a big
difference. They rely on microclimates for survival.

Student:

So cold blood animals, like reptiles, they can’t control their own body temperature,
so I can image the effect of microclimate would have on them.

Professor:

Yes, many reptile insects rely on microclimates to control their body temperature. A
lot of reptiles use burrows or stay under rocks to cool down. Of course with reptiles,
it’s a balancing act. Staying in the heat for too long can lead to problems, but staying
in the cold can do the same. So reptiles have to be really precise about where they
spend their time, even how they position their bodies. And when I say they’re
precise, I mean it--- some snakes will search out a place under rocks of a specific
thickness, because too thin a rock doesn’t keep them cool enough, and too thick a
rock will cause them to get too cold. That level of precision is critical to the snake for
maintaining its body temperature. And even microscopic organisms rely on
microclimates for survival.
Think about this, decomposing leaves create heat that warms the soil; the warm soil
in turn affects the growth, the conditions of organisms there. And those organisms
then affect the rate of decomposition of the leaves. So a microclimate can be
something so small and so easily to disturbed that even a tiny change can have a big
impact. If someone on a hike knocks a couple of rocks over, they could be unwittingly
destroying a microclimate that an animal or organism relies on.

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 14 Conversation 2

Narrator:

Listen to a conversation between a student and his faculty adviser

Advisor:
Hi ，Steven I schedule this appointment, cause it has been a while since we touch
this.

Student:

I know I have been really busy--- a friend of my works on a school a paper. He asks
me if I would like to try to reporting so I did and I really love it.

Advisor:

Hey…that's sounds great!

Student:

Yeah… the first article I wrote it was profile of the chemistry professor---the one
whose name teacher the year. My article ran on the front page. When I saw my
name, I mean my byline in print, I was hooked. Now I know this is what I want to
do--- be a reporter.

Advisor:

Isn't it great to discover something that you really enjoy? And I read that the article
too? It was very good.

Student:

To be honest, the articles got a lot of editing. In fact I barely recognized a couple of
paragraphs. But the editor explained why the changes were made. I learned a lot and
my second article didn't meet nearly many changes.

Advisor:

Sound like you got a real neck for this.

Student:

Yeah… anyway, I am glad you schedule this meeting because I want to change my
major to journalism now. main purpose

Advisor:
Um，the university doesn't offer major in journalism.

Student:

Oh no…

Advisor:

But….

Student:

I… I mean… should I transfer to another school, or major in English?

Advisor:
Er… wait a minute. Let me explain why the major isn’t offered. Editors at the
newspaper… editors… um… I mean when you apply for a reporting job, editors look
at the two things--- 1.they want to see clips, you know, some of your published articles,
though also want to try out, 2.though give you an assignment like… covering a price of
conferences some other event, then see if you can craft the story about it, accurately,
on dead line.

Student:

So they don't even to look at my major?

Advisor:

It is not that they don't look at it… it is… well, having a degree in something other
than journalism should actually work to your advantage.

Student:
How?

Advisor:

Most journalism specialized these days. They only write about science or business or
technology for example. Is there a type of reporting you think you may like to
specialize then?

Student:

Well… I think it can be really cool to cover the Supreme Court. I mean… their decision
affects so many people.

Advisor:

That is really a goal worth striving for. So, why not continue major in political science?
And as elective, you could take some Pre-Law classes like Constitution Law, and as
for you work on the student newspaper paper, maybe they let you cover some local
court cases--- once that the student and professor here would want to read about.
考例子

Student:
Do you know of any？

Advisor:
I do. Actually, there is case involving this computer software program that one of our
professors wrote. The district courts decide in if the university entitle to any of our
professors' profits?

Student:
Wah…. I will definitely follow upon that!


TPO 14 Lecture 3 Astronomy

Narrator:

Listen to part of a lecture in an astronomy class.

Professor:

OK, last time we talked about ancient agricultural civilizations that observed the stars
and then used those observations to keep track of the seasons. But today I want to
talk about the importance of stars for early seafarers, about how the fixed patterns
of stars were used as navigational aids.main purpose
OK, you’ve all heard about the Vikings and their impressive navigation skills, but the
seafaring people of the pacific islands, the Polynesians and the Micronesians, were
quite possibly the world’s greatest navigators. Long before the development of, uh,
advanced navigational tools in Europe, pacific islanders were travelling from New
Zealand to Hawaii and back again, using nothing but the stars as their navigational
instruments.
Um, the key to the pacific islanders’ success was probably their location near the
equator. What that meant was that the sky could be partitioned, divided up, much
more symmetrically than it could farther away from the equator.文章中的点 Unlike the Vikings,
early observers of the stars in Polynesia or really anywhere along the equator would
feel that they were at the very center of things, with the skies to the north and the
skies to the south behaving identically, they could see stars going straight up in the
east and straight down in the west. So it was easier to discern the order in the sky
than farther north or farther south, where everything would seem more chaotic.
Take the case of the Gilbert Islands, they are part of Polynesia, and lie very close to
the equator. And the people there were able to divide the sky into symmetrical boxes,
according to the main directions, north, east, south and west. And they could
precisely describe the location of a star by indicating its position in one of those
imaginary boxes. And they realized that you had to know the stars in order to
navigate. In fact there was only one word for both in the Gilbert Islands, when you
wanted to the star expert, you ask for a navigator.
Um, islanders from all over the pacific learned to use the stars for navigation, and
they passed this knowledge down from generation to generation. Some of them
utilized stone structures called stone canoes, ah, and these canoes were on land, of
course, and you can still see them on some islands today. They were positioned as if
they were heading in the direction of the points on the sea horizon where certain
stars would appear and disappear during the night, and, um, young would-be
navigators set by the stones at night and turned in different directions to memorize
the constellations they saw, so they could recognize them and navigate… by them
later on when they went out to sea.
One important way the Polynesians had for orienting themselves was by using zenith
stars. A zenith star was a really bright star that would pass directly overhead at
particular latitude…at a particular distance from the equator, often at a latitude
associate with some particular pacific island. So the Polynesians could estimate their
latitude just by looking straight up, by observing whether a certain zenith star passed
directly overhead at night, they’d know if they have rates the same latitude as a
particular island they were trying to get to. Um, another technique used by the
Polynesians was to look for a star pair, that’s two stars that rise at the same time, or
set at the same time, and navigators could use these pairs of stars as reference points,
because they rise or set together only at specific latitudes. So navigators might see
one star pair setting together. And, uh…would know how far north or south of the
equator they were. And if they kept on going, and the next night they saw the pairs
of stars setting separately, then they would know that they were at a different degree
of latitude. So looking at rising and setting star pairs is a good technique. Um…
actually it makes more sense with setting stars; they can be watched instead of trying
to guess when they’ll rise.
Uh, OK, I think all this shows that navigating doesn’t really require fancy navigational
instruments; the peoples of the pacific islands had such expert knowledge of
astronomy as well as navigation that they were able to navigate over vast stretches of
Open Ocean. Uh, it's even possible that Polynesian navigators had already sailed to
the Americas, centuries before Columbus.


TPO 14 Lecture 4 Archeology

Narrator:

Listen to part of the lecture in the archaeology class

Professor:
When we think of large monumental structures built by early societies and Egyptian
pyramid probably comes to mind. But there are some even earlier structures in the
British Isles also worth discussing, and besides the well-known circle of massive
stones of Stonehenge which don’t get me wrong is remarkable enough, well, other
impressive Neolithic structures are found there too. Oh, yes, we are talking about the
Neolithic period here, also called new Stone Age, which was the time before stone
tools began to be replaced by tools made by bronze and other metals.
It was about 5000 years ago, even before the first Egyptian pyramid that some of
amazing Neolithic monuments---tombs, were racketed at the very size around ironed
Great Britain and costal islands nearby.
I am referring particular to structures that in some cases, look like ordinary natural
hills. But we definitely build by humans, well-organized communities of human’s to
enclose a chamber or room within stone walls and sometimes with a high, cleverly
designed sealing of overlapping stones. These structures are called Passage Graves,
because in the chamber, sometime several chambers in fact, could only be entered
from the outside through a narrow passage way.

Michael:
Excuse me, professor, but you said Passage Graves. Was this just monument to honor
the dead buried there or were they designed to be used somehow by the living?

Professor:
Ah, yes! Good question, Michael. Besides being built as tombs, some of these
Passage Graves were definitely what we might call Astronomical Calendars, with
chambers they flooded with some light on the certain special days of the year, witch
must see miraculous and inspired good dealer of they really just wonder. But
research indicates that not just light but also the physics of sound help to enhance
this religious experience.

Michael:
How so?

Professor:
Well, first the echoes. When religious leaders started chanting with echoes bounced
off the stonewalls over and over again, it must seem like a whole chorus of other
voices, spirits of God maybe join in. But even more intriguing is what physicists called
Standing Waves. Basically, the phenomenon of Standing Waves occurs when sound
waves of the same frequency reflect off the walls and meet from opposite directions.
So, the volume seems to alternate between very loud and very soft. You can stand
quite near a man singing in loud voice and hardly hear him. Yet step little further
away and voice is almost defining. As you move around chamber, the volume of the
sound goes way up and way down, depending on where you are and these standing
waves. And often the acoustic makes it hard to identify where sounds are coming
from. It is powerful voices that are speaking to you or chanting from inside your own
head. This had to engender powerful sense of all Neolithic worshipers.
And another bit of physics I played here is something called Resonance. I know
physics, but well I imagine you have all below near of top empty bottles and heard
sounds it makes. And you probably notice that depending on its size--- each empty
bottle plays one particular music note. Or it is the physics might put it, each bottle
resonates at a particular frequency. Well, that’s true of these chambers too. If you
make a constant noise inside the chamber, maybe by steadily beating drum at certain
rate, a particular frequency of sound will resonate. We will ring out intensely,
depending on the size of chamber. In some of large chambers though, these
intensified sound may be too deep for us to hear, we can feel it. We are mysteriously
agitated by a….but it is not a sound our ears can hear. The psychological effects of all
these extraordinary sounds can be profound, especially when they seem so
disconnected from human doing drumming or chanting. And there can be observable
physical effects on people too. In fact, the sounds can cause headaches, feelings of
dizziness, increase heartache, that sort of thing, you see.
Anyway, what is we experience inside one of these Passage Graves clearly could be
far more intense than everyday reality outside which made them very special places.
But back to your question, Michael, as to whether these Graves were designed to be
used by the living. Well, certainly, we have got to ask economical or calendar
function. That seems pretty obvious, and I wanna go into more detail on that now.

liang0603UID: 3182007

听力，要这么完成任务么？

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 15 Conversation 1

Narrator:
Listen to a conversation between a student and the faculty advisor of the
campus newspaper .
Student
Hi! I talked to someone on the phone a couple of weeks ago, Anna , I
think it was?
Advisor
I'm Anna, the faculty advisor       
Student
Oh, great! I'm Peter Murphy. You probably don't r e member me, but …
Advisor
No! No! I remember you . You're interested in working for the paper.
Student
Yeah, as a reporter .
Advisor
That's right. You're taking a jo urnalism class and you ’ ve done some
reporting before in high school, right?
Student
Wow, you have a good memory.
Advisor
Well we haven ’ t had many students applying lately so … so anyway, you
still want to do some reporting for us?
Student
Yeah, if you have room for me on the staff .
Advisor
Well we always need more reporters, but you know, we don't pay
anything, right?
Student
Yeah, I know, but I huh.. . I'd like the experience. It would look good on
my resume .
Advisor
Absolutely! Let's see . I think I told you that we ask prospective reporters
to turn in some outlines for possible articles .
Student
Yeah, I sent them in about a week ago, but I haven't heard anything back
yet, so, so I thought I'd stop by and see, but I guess you haven't looked at
them yet .
Advisor
Oh, Max, the news editor. He looks a t all the submissions
Student
Oh , so he hasn't made any decision about me yet?
Advisor
Well I just got here a few minutes ago... haven't been in for a couple of
days. Just give me a second to check my e-mail. Uh … here is a message
from Max. Let ’ s see. Well it seems you ’ ve really impressed him. He says it
would be wonderful if you could join our staff.
Student
Oh, great! When can I start?
Advisor
WeII, you turned in an outline on something to do with the physics
department?
Student
Yeah, they're trying to come up with ways to get more students to take
their introductory courses.
Advisor
Right, well , apparently, nobody else is covering that story , so he wants
you to follow up on it.
Student
OK. Uh … wha t the other outline I sent in, about the proposed increase in
tuition fees?
Advisor
Oh, it lo oks like we've got that covered
Student
So I am starting with an article about the physics department. I guess I'd
better get to work. Do you have any advice on how I should cover the
story?
Advisor
Well, Max will want to talk to you but I am sure he will tell you to find
out things like why the physics department's worried about enrollment.
Has the number of students been getting smaller in recent years? By
how much? What kinds of plans are they considering to address this
problem?
Student
Right, some of those issues are already in what I proposed .
Advisor
And you'll want to do some interviews, you know, what do the professors
think of the plans , what do the students think you get the idea but …Student
But w ai t till I talk to Max before proceeding .
what suggestion does the advisor give?
Advisor
Right, he'll cover everything you need to know to be a report e r for us .
Can you come back this afternoon? He will be here until 5 o'clock .



TPO 15 Lecture 1 Psychology

Narrator:
Listen to part of a lecture in a psychology class
Professor
For decades, psychologists have been looking at our ability to perform
tasks while other things are going on, how we are able to keep from
being distracted and what the conditi ons for good concentration are. As
long ago as 1982, researchers came up with something call ed the CFQ -
the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire. This questionnaire asks people to
rate themselves according to how often they get distracted in different
situations, like h um … .. forgetting to save a computer file because they
had something else on their mind or missing a speed limit sign on the
road. John?
John
I've lost my share of computer files, but not because I ’ m easily distracted.
I just forget to save them.
Professor
And that's part of the problem with the CFQ. It doesn ’ t take other factors
into account enough, like forgetfulness. Plus you really can ’ t say you are
getting objective scientific results from a subjective questionnaire where
people report on themselves. So it’s no surprise that someone
attempted to design an objective way to measure distraction. It’s a
simple computer game designed by a psychologist named, Nilli Lavie. In
Lavie ’ s game, people watch as the letters N and X appear and disappear
in a certain area on the computer screen. Every time they see an N, they
press one key, and every time they see an X they press another, except
other letters also start appearing in the surrounding area of the screen
with increasing frequency which creates a distraction and makes the task
more difficult. Lavie observed that people’s reaction time slowed as
these distractions increased.
Student  2
Well that ’ s not too surprising, isn’t it?
Professor
No, it's not. It's the next part of the experiment that was surprising.
When the difficulty really increased, when the screen filled up with
letters, people got better al spotting the Xs and Ns . What do you think
that happened?
John
Well, maybe when we are really concentrating, we just don't perceive
irrelevant information . Maybe we just don't take it in, you know?
Professor
Yes, and that's one of the hypotheses that was proposed, that the brain
simply doesn't admit the unimportant information. The second
h ypothesis is that, yes, we do perceive everything, but the brain
categorizes the information, and whatever is not relevant to what we are
concentrating on gets treated as low priority. So Lavie did another
experiment, designed to look at the ability to concentrate better in the
face of increased difficulty. This time she used brain scanning equipment
to monitor activity in a certain part of the brain, the area called V5,
which is part of the visual cortex, the part of our brains that processes
visual stimuli .
V5 is the area of the visual cortex that's responsible for the sensation of
movement. Once again, Lavie gave people a computer-based task to do.
They have to distinguish between words in upper and lower-case letters
or even harder, they had to count the number of syllables in different
words. This time the distraction was a moving star field in the
background, you know, where H looks like you are moving through space,
passing stars. Normally area of V5 would be stimulated as those moving
stars are perceived and sure enough, Lavie found that during the task
area of V5 was active, so people were aware of the moving star field.
That means people were not blocking out the distraction.
Student
So doesn't that mean that the first hypothesis you mentioned was wrong,
the one that says we don't even perceive irrelevant information when we
are concentrating?
Professor
Yes that's right, up to a point, bu t that’s not all. Lavie also discovered that
as she made the task more difficult , V5 became less active, so that
means that now people weren ’ t really noticing the star field at all. That
was quite a surprise and it approved that the second hypothesis – that
we do perceive eve rything all the time but the brain categorizes
distractions differently, well, that wasn't true eith er. Lavie thinks the
solution lies in the brain’s ability to accept or ignore visual information.
She thinks its capacity is limited. It’s like a highway. When there are too
many cars, traffic is sto pp e d. No one can get on. So when the brain is
loaded to capacity, no new distractions can be perceived . Now that may
be the correct conclusion for visual distractions, but more research is
needed to tell us how the brain deals with, say, the distractions of solving
a math problem when we are hungry or when someone is singing in the
next room.

TPO 15 Lecture 2 Geology

Narrator:
Listen to part of a lecture in a geology class .
Professor
As geologists , we examine layers of sediment on the Earth' s surface to
approximate the dates of past geologic time periods. Ah sediment as you
know is material like sand, gravel, fossil fragments that is transported by
natural processes like win d , water flow or the movement of glaciers .
So sediment is transported and then deposited and it forms layers on the
Earth’s surface over time. We examine these layers to learn about
different ge ologic time periods including when they began and ended.
For example, from about 1.8 million years ago to around 11 thousand
years ago was the Pleistocene epic. The Pleistocene epic was an ice age.
During this epic, sediment was made by the kind of erosion and
we athering that happens when the climate is colder, and part of those
sediments are fossils of plants and animals that lived at that time.
The Holocene epic followed the Pleistoce ne epic when the Earth’s
climate warmed up around 11 thousand years ago. The Holocene e pic is
characterized by different sediments, ones that form when the climate is
warmer. Because the climate changed, the types of plants and animals
changed also. Holocene sediments contain remnants of more recent
plants and animals, so it's pretty easy to diffe rentiate geologically
between these two epics.
Now there is growing evidence that the presence of humans has altered
the earth so much that a new epic of geologic history has began – the
Anthropocene epic, a new human-influe nced epic. This idea that we’ve
entered a new Anthro-pocene epic was first proposed in 2002. The idea
is that around the year 1800 CE the human population became large
enough, around a billion people, that its activities started altering the
environment. This was also the time of the industrial revolution, which
brought a tremendous increase in the use of fossil fuels such coal. The
exploitation of fossil fuels has brought planet wide developments:
industrialization, construction, uh, mass transport. And these
developments have caused major changes like additional erosion of the
Earth ’ s surface and deforestation. Also, things like the damming of rivers ,
has caused increased sediment production, not to mention the addition
of more carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere .
Naturally all these changes show up in recent sediments. And these
sediments are quite different from pre year 1800 sediment layers.
Interestingly there's some speculation that humans started having a
major impact on Earth much earlier, about 8000 years ago. That's when
agriculture was becoming widespread. Early farmers started clearing
forests and livestock produced a lot of extra methane. But I want to
stress this is just a hypothesis. The idea that early humans could have
had such a major effect, well I'm just not sure we can compare it with
the industrial age. Geologists in the far future will be able t o examine the
sediment being laid down today, whereas right now we can say that yes,
human impact on the Earth is clear: It'll be future researchers who have
a better perspective and will be able to really draw a line between the
Holocene and the Anthropocene epics
这篇结构意识模糊！！

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 15 Conversation 2

Narrator
Listen to part of a conversation between a student and her biology .
Professor
Hi Samantha, how did your track meet go?
Samantha
Great! I placed first in one race and third in another.
Professor
Congratulations ! You must practice a lot.
Samantha
Three times a week pre-season, but now that we ’ re competing every
weekend, we practice 6 days a week from 3:30 till 5:00.
Professor
Athletics place a heavy demand on your time, don ’ t they?
Samantha
Yeah, but I really love competing, so …
Professor
You know I played soccer in college and my biggest challenge, and I
didn ’ t always succeed, was getting my studying in during soccer season.
Are you having a similar …
上面这段闲话不是没有意义的！
Samantha
No, I … I really do make time to study. A nd I actually study more for this
class than I do for all my other classes. But I didn ’ t see the grade I
expected on my mid-term exam, which is why I came by.
main purpose
Professor
Well, you "didn't do badly on the exam, but I agree it did not reflect your
potential. I say this because your work on the lab project was exemplary.
I was so impressed with the way you handle the microscope and the
samples of onion cells,考例子 and with how carefully you observed and
diagramed and interpreted each stage of cell division. And I don't think
you could have done that if you hadn't read and understood the chapter.
I mean it seemed like you really had a good understanding of it.
Samantha
I thought so too, but I missed some questions about cell division on the
exam
Professor
So what happened?
Samantha
I just sort of blanked out, I guess. I had a hard time remembering details.
It was so frustrating.
Professor
Alright, let's back up. You say you studied, where, at home?
Samantha
At my kitchen table actually.
Professor
And that's supposed to be a quiet environment?
Samantha
Not exactly. My brother and parents try to keep it down when I am
studying, but the phone pretty much rings off the hook, so …
Professor
So you might try a place with fewer distractions, like the library …
Samantha
But the library closes at mid-night, and I like to study all night before a
test, you know, so everything is fresh in my mind. I studied six straight
hours the night before the mid-term exam . That’s why I expected to do
so much better.
Professor
Oh ok. Y ou know that studying six consecutive hours is not equivalent to
studying one hour a day for six days.
Samantha
It isn’t?
Professor
No. There is research that shows that after about an hour of intense
focus, your brain needs a break. It needs to, you know, shift gears a little.
Your brain's ability to absorb information starts to decline after about the
first hour. So if you are dealing with a lot of new concepts and vocabulary,
anyway, if you just reviewed your notes, even 20 minutes a day, it'd be
much better than waiting until the night before an exam to try and
absorb all those details .
Samantha
Oh, I didn't realize .
Professor
Think of your brain as: a muscle. If you didn't practice regularly with your
track team, and then tried to squeeze in three weeks worth of running
practice just the day before a track meet, how well do you think you'd
perform in your races? 拿muscle说事

TPO 15 Lecture 3 Art History

Narrator:
Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class .
Professor:
Now in Europe in the Middle Ages before the invention of printing and
the printing pres s, all books, all manual scripts were hand-made. And the
material typically used for the pages was parchment, which is animal skin
that stretched and dried under tension, so it become s really fat and can
be written on . During the 1400s, when printing was being developed,
paper became the predominant material for books in Europe, but prior
to that, it was parchment . Parchment is durable, much more so than
paper, and it could be reus ed which came in handy since it was a costly
material and in short supply. So it wasn’t uncommon for the scribes or
monks who produce the manual scripts . Ah, remember before printing
books were made mainly in monasteries . Well, the scribes often recycled
the parchment that’d been used for earlier manual scripts. They simply
erased the ink off the parchment and wrote something new in its place
A manual script page that was written on, erased and then used again is
called a palimpsest . Palimpsests were created, well, we know about two
methods that were used for removing ink from parchment. In the late
Middle Ages, it was customary to scrape away the surface of the
parchment with an abrasive, which completely wiped out any writing
that was there. But earlier in the Middle Ages, the original ink was
usually removed by washing the used parchment with milk. That
removed the ink. But with the passing of time, the original writing might
reappear. In fact , it might reappear to the extent that scholars could
make out an even decipher , the original text. Perhaps, the most famous
example is the Archimedes' palimpsest.提醒下面要说例子
Archimedes lived in G re ece around 200 BCE, and as you probably know,
he's considered one of the greatest Mathematicians who ever lived, even
though , many of his writings had been lost , includi ng what many now
think to be his most important work called The Method . But in 1998, a
book of prayers from the Middle Ages sold in an art auction for a lot of
money, more money than anyone would pay for a damaged book from
the 12th century. Beautiful or not, why? It had been discovered that the
book was a palimpsest, and beneath the surface writing on the manual
script laid, guess what? Mathematical theorems and diagrams from
Archimedes
Archimedes' writings were originally done on papyrus scrolls. Then in the
10 th century, a scribe made a copy on parchment of some of his texts and
diagrams including, as it turns out, The Method . This was extremely
fortunate, since later on, the original papyrus scrolls disappeared. About
200 years later in the 12 th century, this parchment manual script became
a palimpsest when a scribe used the parchment to make a prayer book.
So the pages, the pieces of parchment themselves, had been preserved.
But the Archimedes' text was erased and written over, and no one knew
it existed. It wasn't until 1906 that a scholar came across the prayer book
in a library and realized it was a palimpsest, and that the underlying layer
of texts could only have come from Archimedes. That was when his work
The Method was discovered for the first time.
Um... the palimpsest then went through some more tough times, but
eventually it ended up in an art auction where was bought and then
donated to an art museum in Baltimore, for conservation and study. To
avoid further damage to the manual script, the research team at the art
museum has had to be extremely selective in their techniques they used
to see the original writing. They've used ultraviolet light and some other
techniques, and if you're interested in that sort of thing, you can learn
more about it in an art conservation class. But act ually, it was a physicist
who came up with a method that was a breakthrough. He realized that
the iron in the ancient ink would display if exposed to a certain X-ray
imaging method, and except for small portions of the text that couldn't
be deciphered, this technique's been very helpful in seeing Archimedes'
texts and drawings through the medieval over writing .



TPO 15 Lecture 4 Biology

Narrator:
Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.
Professor:
OK. We've been talking till now about the two basic needs of a biological
community – an energy source to produce organic materials, you know
ah, food for the organism , and the waste recycling or breakdown of
materials back into inorganic molecules, and abo ut how all this requires
photosynthesis when green plants or microbes convert sunlight into
energy and also requires microorganisms, bacteria, to secrete chemicals
that break down or recycle the organic material to complete the cycle
So, now we are done with this chapter of the textbook, we can just
review for the weekly quiz and move on to the next chapter, right? Well,
not so fast. 语气题First, I ‘d like to talk about some discoveries that have
challenged one of these fundamental assumptions about what you need
in order to have a biological community.
And, well, there actually were quite a few surprises. It all began in 1977
with the exploration of hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.
Hydrothermal vents are cracks in the Earth ’ s surface that occur, well, the
ones we are taiking about here are found deep at the bottom of the
ocean. And these vents on the ocean floor, they release this incredibly
hot water, 3-4 times the temperature that you boil water at be cause this
water has been heated deep within the Earth. Well about 30 years ago,
researche rs sent a deep-sea vessel to explore the ocean ’ s depth, about 3
kilometers down, way deep to ocean floor, No one had ever explored
that far down before. Nobody exp ected there to be any life down there
because of the conditions. First of all, sunlight doesn't reach that far
down so it ’ s totally dark. There couldn ’ t be any plant or animal life since
there's no sunlight, no source of energy to make food. If there was any
life at all, it ’ d just be some bacter ia breaking down any dead materials
that might have fallen to the bottom of the ocean . And?
Student  1
And what about the water pressure? Didn’t we talk before about how
the deeper down into the ocean you go, the greater the pressure?
Professor
Excellent point! And not only the extreme pressure, but also the extreme
temperature of the water around these vents. If the lack of sunlight
didn't rule out the existence of a biological community down there then
these factors certainly would, or so they thought.
Student  2
So you are telling us they did find organisms that could live under those
conditions?
Professor:
They did indeed, something like 300 different species
Student  1  But... but how could that be? I mean without sunlight, no energy, no no …
Protessor:
What they discovered was that microorganisms, bacteria, had taken over
both functions of the biological community - the recycling of waste
materials and the production of energy. They were the energy source.
You see, it turns out that certain microorganisms are chemosynthetic -
they don't need sunlight because they take their energy from chemical
reactions
So, as I said, unlike green plants which are photosynthetic and their
energy from sunlight, these bacteria that they found at the ocean floor,
these are chemosynthetic, which means that they get their energy from
chemical reactions. How does this work?附近没找到明显信号词
As we said, these hydrothermal vents are releasing into the ocean depth
this intensely hot water and here is the thing, this hot water contains a
chemical called hydrogen sulfide, and also a gas , carbon dioxide. Now
these bacteria actually combine the hydrogen sulfide with the carbon
dioxide and this chemical reaction is what produces organic material
which is the food for larger organisms. The researchers had never seen
anything like it before.
Student  2 :
Wow! So just add a chemical to a gas, and bingo, you ’ ve got a food
supply?
Professor
Not just t hat! What was even more surprising were all the large
organisms that lived down there. The most distinctive of these was
something called the tube worm.考例子 Here, let me show you a picture .
The tube of the tube worm is really, really long. They can be up to one
and half meters long , and these tubes are attached to the ocean floor,
pretty weird looking, huh?
And another thing, the tube worm has no. mouth, or digestive organs. So
you are asking how does it eat? Well, they have these special organs that
collect the hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide and then transfer it to
another organ, where billions of bacteria live. These bacteria that live
inside the tube worms, the tube worms provide them with hydrogen
sulfide and carbon dioxide. And the bacteria, well the bacteria kind of
feed the tube worms through chemosynthesis, remember, that chemical
reaction I described earlier.

香草鱼UID: 3125484

Conversation 1（场景分类——后勤问题）

Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and a facilities manager at the university.

Student:

Hi. I’m Melanie, the one who’s been calling.

Manager:

From the singing group, right?

Student:

From the choir.

Manager:

Right, the choir. It’s nice to finally meet you in person. So, you are having problems with...

Student:

Noise. Like I explained on the phone （2）we’ve always had our rehearsals in the Lincoln Auditorium every day at 3 o’clock and it’s always worked just great. But the past few weeks with the noise, it’s been a total nightmare since constructions started next door on the science hall.

Manager:

Oh, that’s right. They’re building that addition for new laboratories.

Student:

Exactly. Anyway, ever since they started working on it, it’s been so noisy we can barely hear ourselves sing.

Manager:

Let alone sing.

Student:

Forget about singing. I mean, we keep the windows down and everything, but once those bulldozers get going, I mean those machines are loud. We’ve already had to cut short two rehearsals and we’ve got a concert in 6 weeks.

Manager:

Well, that’s not good. I’m assuming you’ve tried to reschedule your rehearsals.（3）They don’t do construction work at night.

Student:

I ran that by the group, but there were just too many. I mean evenings are really hard. It seems like everyone in the choir already has plans and some even have classes at night.

Manager:

And what about the music building?

Student:

（4）You know, originally we were booked in one of the rehearsal rooms in the music building, but then we switched with the jazz ensemble. They’re a much smaller group and they said the acoustics, the sound in that room, was better for them. So having us moved to a bigger space like the Lincoln Auditorium seemed like a reasonable idea.

Manager:

But now...

Student:

All that noise. I don’t know. I just wonder if the jazz ensemble knew what was going to happen.

Manager:

Well, that wouldn’t be very nice.

Student:

No. But it really was quite a coincidence. Anyway, now the music building’s fully booked, mornings, afternoons, everything, we just need a quiet space. And it has to have a piano.

Manager:

A piano. Of course some of the other auditoriums have pianos, but that’s not going to be easy.

Student:

You think they’re pretty booked up?

Manager:

Probably. But it can’t hurt to check. What about Bradford Hall? I remember a piano in the old student center there.

Student:

At this point, we’d be grateful for any quiet place.

Manager:

（5）Can you... How flexible can you be on times? 语气题You said no evenings, but what if I can’t find something open at 3 o’clock? Can you move earlier or later?

Student:

I wish I could say another time would be okay, but you know how it is, everybody’s already got commitments for the whole semester 2:30 or 3:30 would probably be okay, but I don’t think we could go much outside that

Manager:

Well, check with me tomorrow morning. I should’ve found something by then. It might not be ideal...

Student:

As long as it’s got a piano and nobody’s putting up a building next door, we’ll be happy.



词汇：



facility n. 设施    choir n. 合唱队  rehearsal n. 预演；练习

auditorium n. 礼堂；会堂    bulldozer n. 推土机    switch with 交换

ensemble 合奏组    acoustic n. 原声乐器   coincidence n. 巧合     check n. 阻止；制止


题目：

1. What does the woman want the man to do?
解析：主旨题，全文在讲女学生希望管理员能够帮自己找到一个没有噪声的练习场地。
答案：Help her reserve a rehearsal space on campus.

2. What problem concerning Lincoln Auditorium is mentioned?
解析：细节题，定位Lincoln Auditorium，注意but后面的内容。原文中说constructions started next door同义替换为near a construction site.
答案：The auditorium is located near a construction site.

3. What does the woman imply about having rehearsals in the evening?
解析：推测题，定位in the evening原文中为at night，注意but和I mean之后的内容。原文中说同学们晚上都有自己的事情要做，有的甚至有课，说明他们晚上没时间。
答案：Many students are not available in the evening.

4. What is the woman’s attitude toward the jazz ensemble?
解析：推断题，定位jazz ensemble。原文中说自从跟爵士合奏团换了房间就有这些噪声，她怀疑爵士合奏团的人是不是知道这件事，可以推测他们骗了自己。
答案：She believes they may have deceived（欺骗）her.

5. What does the woman imply when she says this?
解析：复听意图推测题，注意but后面的内容，表明她不能随便更改时间。
答案：She is sorry that she cannot change the rehearsal time.


Lecture（学科分类——地质学）

Narrator: Listen to a part of lecturer in a geology class.

Professor:

（6）Now there are some pretty interesting caves in parts of the western United States, especially in national parks. There is one part that has over a hundred caves, including some of the largest ones in the world. One of the more interesting ones is called Lechuguilla Cave. Lechuguilla has been explored a lot in recent decades. It’s a pretty exciting place I think. It was mentioned only briefly in your books. So can anyone remember what it said? Ellen?

Male student:

It’s the deepest limestone cave in theU.S.?

Professor:

That’s right. It’s one of the longest and deepest limestone caves not just in the country but in the world. Now, what else?

Male student:

Well, it was formed because of sulfuric acid, right?

Professor:

That’s it. Yeah, what happens is you have deep underground oil deposits and there are bacteria. Here let me draw a diagram. Part of the limestone rock layer is permeated by water from below. Those curly lines are supposed to be cracks in the rock. Below the water table and rock is oil. （7）Bacteria feed on this oil and release hydrogen sulfide gas. This gas is hydrogen sulfide, rises up and mixes with oxygen in the underground water that sits in the cracks and fissures in the limestone. And when hydrogen sulfide reacts with the oxygen in the water, the result of that is sulfuric acid, Ok? （7）Sulfuric acid eats away at limestone very aggressively. So you get bigger cracks and then passageway is being formed along the openings in the rock and it’s all underground. Ah yes, Paul?

Male student:

So that water... it’s not flowing, right? It’s still?

Professor:

Yes, so there are two kinds of limestone caves. In about 90 percent of them, you have water from the surface, streams, waterfall or whatever - moving water that flows through cracks found in limestone. It’s the moving water itself that wears away at the rock and makes passageways. （8）Also, in surface water, there is a weak acid, carbonic acid, not sulfuric acid but carbonic acid that helps dissolve the rock. With a little help from this carbonic acid, moving water forms most of the world’s limestone caves. When I was researching this for a study a few years ago, I visited a couple of these typical limestone caves, and they were all very wet, you know, from streams and rivers. This flowing water carved out the caves and the structures inside them.

Male student:

But not Lechuguilla?

Professor:

（11）Dry as a bone. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. But it’s safe to say that it’s sulfuric acid and not moving water that formed Lechuguilla cave and those few other ones like it. In fact, there is no evidence that flowing water has ever gone in or out of the cave. So, it’s like a maze. You have passageways all around. There are wide passages, narrow ones at all different depths, like underground tunnels in the limestone. And, since they were created underground and not from flowing surface water, not all these passageways have an opening to the outside world. And.. .and there is other evidence that flowing water wasn’t involved in Lechuguilla. We’ve said that sulfuric acid dissolves limestone, right, and forms the passageways? What else does sulfuric acid do? Paul?

Male student:

Ah, leaves a chemical residue and...

Female student:

Gypsum, right?

Professor:

（9）Yep, you’ll find lots of gypsum deposited at Lechuguilla. And, as we know, gypsum is soluble in water. So if there were flowing water in the cave, it would dissolve the gypsum. This is part of what led us to the realization that Lechuguilla is in that small group of waterless caves. And （10）Lechuguilla is pretty much dormant now. It’s not really forming any more. But, there is other ones like it, for example, in Mexico, that are forming. And when cave researchers go to explore them, they see and smell, the sulfuric acid and gases of...er...phew...now, something else, think of rotten eggs. And, it’s not just the smell. Explorers even need to wear special masks to protect themselves from the gases in these caves. OK? Paul.

Male student:

Yeah, how about what these caves look like on the inside?

Professor:

Well, the formations.. .there is really something. There’s such variety there like nothing anywhere else in the world, （7）some of them are elaborate looking, like decorations. And a lot of them are made of gypsum and could be up to 20 feet long. It’s pretty impressive.



词汇：
cave n. 洞穴   limestone n. 石灰岩   sulfuric acid 硫酸

deposit n. 沉淀物   layer n. 层   permeate v. 渗透

curly adj. 卷曲的   crack n. 裂缝   hydrogen n. 氢

sulfide n. 硫化物   oxygen n. 氧气   fissure n. 裂缝

aggressively adv. 侵略地   passageway n. 通道；走廊   carbonic adj. 碳的

dissolve v. 使溶解   dry as a bone 干透的   exaggeration n. 夸张

maze n. 迷惑   residue n. 残渣   gypsum n. 石膏   deposite v. 沉积

soluble adj. 可溶解的   dissolve v. 溶解   dormant adj. 休眠的；静止的

rotten adj. 腐烂的；恶臭的   elaborate adj. 精心制作的；详尽的



题目：

6. What is the main purpose of the lecture?
解析：主旨题，不要听到原文中出现national parks被B选项（To describe caves and other geologic formations in U.S. national parks）迷惑。文章介绍了Lechuguilla这个特殊洞穴的形成以及特点。
答案：To discuss the formation and characteristics of an unusual type of cave.

7. The professor mentions parts of the process involved in the formation ofLechuguillaCave. Indicate which of the statements below describe part of the process. Click in the correct box for each phrase.
解析：结构题。本题需要对文章有着充分的理解，文中出现的句子通过同义替换得出答案。
答案：
Gypsum residue accumulated to form decorative structures             Y

Gas generated by bacteria reacted with gypsum deposits                N

Hydrogen sulfide gas mixed with underground water                       Y

Acid dissolved parts of the limestone                                             Y

Bacteria fed on underground oil                                                    Y

Flowing surface water enlarged the cracks in the limestone              N

8. According to the professor, what substance found in surface water is important for the formation of typical limestone caves?
解析：细节题，定位in surface water，注意but后面的内容，教授使用了强调句型。不要被因为文中多次出现sulfuric acid 而被D选项（Sulfuric acid）迷惑。
答案：Carbonic acid

9. What does the presence of gypsum inLechuguillaCaveindicate?
解析：细节题，定位gypsum，原文中用了假设句，说if there were flowing water in the cave, it would dissolve the gypsum（如果有流水，会将石膏溶解），说明没有流水。
答案：The cave was not formed by flowing water.

10. What can be inferred from the fact thatLechuguillaCaveis no longer forming?
解析：推断题，定位no longer forming，原文中为not really forming any more，注意but后面与Lechuguilla对比的内容。文中说还在形成的洞穴里面味道很臭，需要戴面具，说明不在形成的洞穴里气味已经比较正常。
答案：The air in the cave is safer to breathe now than it was in the past.

11. What does the professor mean when he says this?
解析：复听意图推断题。教授说（Lechuguilla）非常干燥，不过这样说有点夸张。说明它并不是完全没有水份。
答案： Lechuguilla Cave is not completely absent of water.



Lecture 2（学科分类——音乐）

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a music history class.

Professor:

Up until now in our discussions and readings about the broken early classical periods, we’ve been talking about the development of musical styles and genres within the relatively narrow social context of its patronage by the upper classes. （13）（17）Composers, after all, had to earn a living and those who were employed in the services of a specific patron, well, I don’t have to spell it out for you, the likes and dislikes of that patron, this would’ve had an effect on what was being composed and performed. Now, of course, there were many other influences on composers, um, such as the technical advances we’ve seen in the development of some of the instruments, uh, you remember the transverse flute, the clarinet and so on. But I think if I were asked to identify a single crucial development in European music of this time, it would be the invention of the piano, which, interestingly enough also had a significant effect on European society of that time. And I’ll get to that in a minute. Now, as we know, keyboard instruments existed long before the piano - the organ, which dates back to the Middle Ages, as do other keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord which is still popular today with some musicians. （12）But none of these has had as profound an impact as the piano.

Um, the piano was invented in Italy in 1709. The word piano is short for pianoforte, a combination of the Italian words for soft and loud. （14）Now, unlike the harpsichord which came before it, the piano is a percussion instrument. You see, the harpsichord is actually classified as a string instrument, since pressing a key of a harpsichord causes a tiny quill that’s connected to the key to pluck the strings that are inside the instrument, much the same as a guitar pick plucks the strings of a guitar. But pressing the keys of a piano causes tiny felt-covered hammers to strike the strings inside the instrument, like drumsticks striking the head of a drum. This striking action is why the piano is a percussion instrument instead of a string instrument. Okay, so why is this so important? Well, the percussive effect of those little hammers means that the pianist, unlike the harpsichordist, can control the dynamics of the sound - how softly or loudly each note is struck, hence the name, pianoforte, soft and loud. Now artistically for both composers and performers this was a major turning point.
（15）This brand new instrument, capable of producing loud and soft tones, greatly expanded the possibilities for conveying emotion. This capacity for increased expressiveness, in fact, was essential to the Romantic style that dominated 19th century music. But I’m getting ahead of myself Um, before we get back to the musical impact of this development, I wanna take a look at the social impact that I mentioned earlier. Now, in the late 1 700s and the earlier 1 800s, the development of the piano coincided with the growth of the middle class in Western Europe. Of course folk music, traditional songs and dances had always been part of everyday life. But as mass production techniques were refined in the 19th century, the price of pianos dropped to the point that a larger proportion of the population could afford to own them. As pianos became more available, they brought classical music, the music which previously had been composed only for the upper classes, into the lives of the middle class people as well.
（16）One way in particular that we can see the social impact of this instrument is its role in the lives of women of the time. Previously, it was quite rare for a woman to perform on anything, but maybe a harp or maybe she sang. But suddenly in the 19th century it became quite acceptable, even, to some extent, almost expected for a middle-class European woman to be able to play the piano, partly because among upper-middle class women it was a sign of refinement. But it was also an excellent way for some women to earn money by giving piano lessons. And some women, those few who had exceptional talent and the opportunity to develop it, their lives were dramatically affected. Later we’ll be listening to works by a composer named Robert Schumann. But let’s now talk about his wife Clara Schumann. Clara Schumann was born inGermany in 1819. She grew up surrounded by pianos. Her father sold pianos and both her parents were respected piano teachers. She learned to play the instrument when she was a small child and gave her first public recital at age 9. Clara grew up to become a well-known and respected piano virtuoso, a performer of extraordinary skill who not only gave concerts across Europe, but also was one of the first important female composers for the instrument.



词汇
genre n. 类型；流派   patronage n. 赞助；光顾   patron n. 赞助人

transverse flute 横笛   clarinet n. 单簧管，竖笛   keyboard n. 键盘

harpsichord n. 大键琴   percussion n. 敲打乐器   pluck v. 拔；扯

drumstick n. 鼓槌   percussive adj. 冲击的；敲击的   harpsichordist n. 弹大键琴者

dynamics n. 动力学   coincide v. 一致；符合   harp n. 竖琴

refinement n. 文雅；精致   recital n. 独奏会；独唱会   virtuoso n. 艺术大师


题目

12. What is the lecture mainly about?
解析：主旨题，全文围绕钢琴展开，impact同义替换为influence.
答案：The influence of the piano on music and society.

13. What does the professor mention as influences on musical styles before the invention of the piano?
解析：细节题，原文中只涉及到A选项，其他选项都没提到。原文中a specific patron同义替换为particular patrons
答案：The preferences of particular patrons

14. Why does the professor describe how a piano works?
解析：意图推断题。教授在解释钢琴工作原理前后都强调钢琴是打击乐器而不是弦乐器，所以是为了解释原因。
答案：To explain why pianos are not classified as string instruments.

15. According to the professor, why did the piano become more popular than the harpsichord?
解析：推断题，只有D选项在文中有据可循。原文中expanded the possibilities for conveying emotion同义替换为express a wider range of emotions
答案：The piano could express a wider range of emotions than the harpsichord.

16. Why does the professor discuss Clara Schumann?
解析：意图推测题。在提到Clara Schumann之前，对社会的背景介绍可以看出她生长的时代是女音乐家受鼓励的。
答案：She grew up in an environment that encouraged female musicians.

17. What does the professor imply when he says this?
解析：复听意图推测题，根据复听的部分可以看出学生容易理解这句话，所以教授不用写下来。
答案：The students can easily guess what he means.

香草鱼UID: 3125484

Conversation 2（场景分类——考试询问）

Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a professor and a student .

Professor

Jeff, I’m glad you drop by. （2）I’ve been meaning to congratulate you on the class leadership award.

Student

Thanks professor Bronson, I was really happy to get it and a little surprised. I mean, there were so many other people nominated.

Professor

Well, I know the award was well deserved. Now, what can I do for you today?

Student

（1）I needed to talk to you about the medieval history test you know, the one scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Professor

Yes?

Student

Well, there is this trip that my French class is taking. （3）We are going to Montreal for the weekend.

Professor

Montreal? That’s my favorite city. What’ll you be seeing there?

Student

I’m not sure yet. Well, the reason, the main reason I wanted to go is that we’ll be rooming with French speaking students there, you know, so we can get a chance to use our French to actually talk with real French speakers.

Professor

It sounds like a good opportunity. But then, there is that test.

Student

Yeah... but.. well, the thing is the bus leaves right in the middle of when our history class meets this Friday. So, well, I was thinking maybe I could take the test on a different day like Monday morning during your office hours?

Professor

（5）Eh...Monday morning...um...that would not be...oh wait, let me just see one thing. Aha, okay. That’s what I thought. So, for your class, I was planning a take-home exam so you could just take the test along with you. Let’s see, I guess you could come to class Friday just to pick up the test. That way you’d still make your bus, and then find some quiet time during your trip to complete it and you can bring it to class Wednesday when I’ll be collecting everyone else’s.

Student

Hmm.. . um...during the trip, well, I guess I could. So I should plan to take my books and stuff with me.

Professor

You’ll definitely need your class notes. I’m giving you several short essay questions to make you think critically about the points we’ve discussed in class, （4）to state.. .uh state and defend your opinion, analyze the issues, speculate about how things might have turned out differently. So, you see, I don’t care if you look updates and that kind of thing. What I want is for you to synthesize information to reflect back on what we’ve read and discussed and to form your own ideas, not just repeat points from the textbook. Does that make sense?

Student

Yeah, I think so. You are looking for my point of view.

Professor

That’s right. The mid-term exam showed me that you know all the details of who, where and when. For this test, l want to see how you can put it all together to show some original thinking.

Student

That’s sounds pretty challenging, especially trying to work it into this trip. But, yeah, I think I can do it.

Professor

I’m sure you can.

Student

Thank you, professor Bronson.

Professor

Have a great time inMontreal.



词汇   nominate v. 提名；推荐   medieval adj. 中世纪的   synthesize v. 合成；综合


问题

1 Why does the student go to see the professor?
解析：主旨题，文中学生找教授是为了商讨测试的事情，因为他有事情和测试冲突，于是要求换个考试时间。
答案：To ask to take a test at a different time.

2 Why does the professor congratulate the student?
解析：细节题，定位congratulate，因为他获得了leadership award.
答案：He recently won an award.

3 What will the student do this weekend?
解析：细节题，定位weekend ，注意后面的main reason是跟法国人练习法语，不要被A选项（Take a trip with his medieval history class）迷惑。
答案：Practice speaking French.

4 What are two of the criteria the professor will use to evaluate students’ essays?
Click on 2 answers.
解析：推断题，题干中没有明确的定位词，原文中提到的即为答案。原文中analyze the issues同义替换为analyze ideas
答案：How successfully they defend their own opinions.
How carefully they analyze ideas discussed in class.

5 What does the professor imply when she says this?
解析：复听意图推测题，复听部分提到a take-home exam，是一种考试形式。根据教授语气看出教授想确认自己考试计划。
答案：She wants to confirm her plans for a test.



Lecture 3（学科分类——生物学）

Narrator: Listen to a part of a lecture in a biology class.

Professor

OK. Let’s continue our discussion about animal behavior by talking about decisions that animals face, complex ones. Animals, even insects, carry out what look like very complex decision making processes. The question is how. I mean no one really thinks that, say a bee goes through weighing the pros and cons of pollinating this flower or that flower. But then how do animals solve complex questions, questions that seem to require decision making. The answer we’ll propose of course is that their behavior is largely a matter of natural selection. （6）As an example, let’s look at foraging behavior among beavers. Beavers eat plants, mostly trees. And they also use trees and tree branches to construct their homes in streams and lakes. So when they do forage for food and for shelter materials, they have to leave their homes and go up on land where their main predators are. So there are a number of choices that have to be made about foraging. So for example, um... they need to decide what kind of tree they should cut down. （7）Some trees have higher nutritional value than others, and some are better for building material, and some are good for both... um...aspen trees. Beavers peel off the bark to eat and they also use the branches for building their shelters. So aspens do double duty. But ash trees, beavers use ash trees only for construction.



Another decision is when to forage for food. （10）Should they go out during the daytime when it’s hotter outside and they have to expend more energy, or at night when the weather is cooler but predators are more active? Ok, but there are two more important issues, really the most central, the most important, OK? First, let’s say a beaver could get the same amount of wood from a single large tree when it has lots of branches as it could get from three small trees. Which should it choose? If it chooses one large tree, it’ have to carry that large piece of wood back home, and lugging a big piece of wood 40 or 50 yards is hard work, takes a lot of energy. Of course it’ll have to make only one trip to get the wood back to the water On the other hand, if it goes for three small trees instead, it will take less energy per tree to get the wood back home but it’ll have to make three trips back and forth for the three trees. And presumably, the more often it wanders from home, the more it’s likely to be exposed to predators. So which is better, a single large tree or three small trees?



（8）Another critical issue and it’s related to the first, to the size issue, is how far from the water should it go to get trees. Should it be willing to travel a greater distance for a large tree, since it’ll get so much wood from it? Beavers certainly go farther from the water to get an aspen tree than for an ash tree. That reflects their relative values. But what about size? Will it travel farther for a larger tree than it will for a smaller tree? （11）Now I would have thought the bigger the tree, the farther the beaver would be willing to travel for it. That would make sense, right? If you’re going to travel far, make the trip worth it buy bringing back most wood possible. （9）But actually, the opposite is true. Beavers will cut down only large trees that are close to the water. They will travel far only to cut down certain small trees that they can cut down quickly and drag back home quickly. Generally, the farther they go from the water, the smaller the tree they will cut down. They’re willing to make more trips to haul back less wood, which carries a greater risk of being exposed to predators. So it looks as though beavers are less interested in minimizing their exposure to predators and more interested in saving energy when foraging for wood, which may also explain why beavers forage primarily during the evenings. OK, so why does their behavior indicate more of a concern with how much energy they expend than with being exposed to predators? No one believes a beaver consciously weighs the pros and cons of each of these elements. The answer that some give is that their behavior has evolved over time. It’s been shaped by constraints over vast stretches of time, all of which comes down to the fact that the best foraging strategy for beavers isn’t the one that yields the most food or wood. It’s the one that results in the most descendants, the most offspring. So let’s discuss how this idea works.



词汇
pollinate v. 对……授粉   forage v. 搜寻   beaver n. 海狸

shelter n. 避难所；遮盖物   ash tree 白蜡树   predator n. 捕食者

aspen adj. 【植】山杨的   peel off 剥去；脱掉   lug v. 用力拉

presumably adv. 大概；可假定   haul n. 拖；拉   constraint n. 约束

descendant n. 子孙；后代   offspring n. 子孙；后代

问题

6. What is the lecture mainly about?
解析：主旨题，全文围绕海狸的觅食中的选择展开。文中提到decision making，不要被C选项（Decisions beavers make about where to live）迷惑。
答案：Choices beavers face when foraging.

7. What differences between aspen trees and ash trees does the professor point out?
解析：细节题，定位aspen trees 和ash trees，原文中将2者进行对比，aspen trees可以用做食物也可建窝，而ash trees只能建窝。所以aspen trees价值更大。
答案：Aspen trees have more overall value to beavers.

8. What does the professor identify as the two central issues involved in beavers’ behavior?
Click on 2 answers.
解析：细节题，定位central issues，2个要点为：距离和树的大小。
答案：How far from home to forage.
What size tree to cut down.

9. What does the professor say about the cutting down of large trees?
解析：细节题，定位cutting down of large trees，注意原文中强转折”But actually, the opposite is true”后面的内容，说海狸只砍附近的大树，远的砍小树。
答案：Beavers generally do not travel long distances to cut down large trees.

10. According to the professor, why do beavers generally forage at night?
解析：细节题，定位at night，原文中将海狸在白天和夜间搜寻进行比较，文中说白天需要更多的能量，说明晚上需要的能量比较少。
答案：Foraging at night requires less energy than foraging in the daytime.

11. Why does the professor say this?
解析：复听意图推断题，本句出现在教授问句“这讲得通，对面”之后，解释了自己的推理。
答案：To explain her reasoning.



Lecture 4 （学科分类——艺术史）

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.

Professor

（13）OK, now urn, a sort of paradigmatic art form of the Middle Ages was stained glass art. Stained glass of course is simply glass that has been colored and cut into pieces and re-assembled to form a picture or a decorative design. To truly experience the beauty of this decorative glass you should see it with light passing through it, especially sunlight, which is why stained glass is usually used for windows. But of course it has other uses, especially nowadays. Urn, anyway the art of making stained glass windows developed in Europe, urn, during the Middle Ages and was closely related to church building. In the early 1100s a church building method was developed that reduced the stress on the walls so more space could be used for window openings allowing for large and quite elaborate window designs. Back then, the artists made their own glass, （14）but first they came up with the design. Paper was scarce and expensive, so typically they drew the design onto a white tabletop. They’d draw the principal outline but also outline the shape of each piece of glass to be used and indicate its color. Now in the window itself the pieces of glass would be held together by strips of lead. So in the drawing the artists would also indicate the location of the lead strips. Then you could put a big piece of glass on the tabletop and see the design right through it and use it to guide the cutting of the glass into smaller pieces.

Student

And the lead that was just to hold the pieces of glass together?

Professor

Well, lead is strong and flexible so it’s ideal for joining pieces of glasses cut in different shapes and sizes. （15）But up to the 15th century the lead strips also helped create the design. They were worked into the window as part of the composition. They were used to outline figures to show boundaries just like you might use solid lines in a pencil drawing.

Student

How did they get the color’? I mean how did they color the glass?

Professor

Well up until the 16th century stained glass was colored during the glass making process itself. You got specific colors by adding metallic compounds to the other glass making ingredients. So if you wanted red you added copper if you wanted green you added iron. You just added these compounds to the other ingredients that the glass was made of.

Student

So each piece of glass is just one color?

Professor

Yes, at least up until the 16th century. Then they started... urn.. .you started to get painted glass. Painted glass windows are still referred to as stained glass but the colors were actually painted directly onto clear glass after the glass was made. So um with this kind of stained glass you could paint a piece of glass with more than one color.

Student

And with painted glass they still used the lead strips?

Professor

Yes, with really large windows it took more than one piece of glass, so you still needed lead strips to hold the pieces together. But the painters actually tried to hide them. So it was different from before when the lead strips were part of the design. And it is different, because with painted glass the idea of light corning through to create the magical effect wasn’t the focus any more. The paintwork was. And painted glass windows became very popular. （17）In the 19th century, people started using them in private houses and public buildings. Unfortunately, many of the original stained glass windows were thought to be old fashioned and they were actually destroyed, replaced by painted glass.

Student

They actually broke them? That showed good judgment, real foresight, didn’t it?

Professor

Yes, if only they had known. Uh, and it’s not just that old stained glass is really valuable today, we lost possibly great artwork. But luckily there was a revival of the early techniques in the mid-I 800s and artists went back to creating colored glass and using the lead strips in their designs. The effects are much more beautiful. In the 19th century Louis Tiffany came up with methods to create beautiful effects without having to paint the glass. He layered pieces of glass and used thin copper strips instead of lead, which let him make these really intricate flowery designs for stained glass, which are used in lamp shades （16）You’ve heard of Tiffany lamp shades right? These of course took advantage of the new innovation of electric lighting. Electric light bulbs don’t give quite the same effect as sunlight streaming through stained glass but it’s close. So layered glass, Tiffany glass, became very popular and still is today. So let’s look at some examples of different types of stained glass from each era.



词汇：paradigmatic adj. 模范的；范例的    stain v. 污染；着色     assemble v. 集合；聚集

elaborate adj. 精心制作的    scarce adj. 缺乏的    tabletop n. 桌面

metallic adj. 金属的    compound n. 化合物；混合物    ingredient n. 原料

copper n. 铜    iron n. 铁    foresight n. 先见；远见    revival n. 复兴

lamp shade 灯罩    bulb n. 电灯泡





题目：

12. What is the lecture mainly about?
解析：主旨题，这是一节艺术历史课，主体是stained-glass这种艺术形式。
答案：The history of stained-glass art.

13. What are two points the professor makes about stained-glass windows made during the Middle Ages? Click on 2 answers.
解析：细节题，定位the Middle Ages，文中说到的2点分别为玻璃被上色及被用于教堂。
答案：The glass was colored during the glassmaking process.
They were used mainly for churches.

14. During the Middle Ages, what was one of the first steps that artists used in making a stained-glass window?
解析：细节题，定位first，原文中onto a white tabletop同义替换为onto the top of a table
答案：They drew the design onto the top of a table.

15. According to the professor, what are two ways in which stained-glass windows made in the sixteen century differed from those made in earlier centuries? Click on 2 answers.
解析：推断题，定位the sixteen century，文中说直到16世纪彩色玻璃才在制造过程中上色，而15世纪lead strips也对设计起帮助作用。另外2个选项文中没有涉及到。
答案：The way the glass was colored.
The role played by lead strips.

16. What does the professor imply contributed to the popularity of Tiffany glass?
解析：推断题，定位the popularity of Tiffany glass。原文中说它得益于the new innovation of electric lighting
答案：The invention of electric lighting.

17. What does the woman imply when she says this?
解析：复听意图推断题，短对话中教授说“非常不幸的”，说明女生也感到惋惜。
答案：It is unfortunate that people in the 19th century destroyed old stained-glass

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 17 Conversation 1

Narrator
Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.  

Professor
OK, let’ s see. Right, Modern Stagings of a Shakespearian Classic. Well, like  I  told you
last week, I think that’s a great topic for you paper. So the title would be something
like ... uh ...

Student
I am not really sure, probably something like 20th
century stagings of A Midsummer
Night’s Dream.

Professor
Yes, I like that. Straightforward and to the point. So how is the research going?

Student
Well, that’s what  I  came to talk to you about. I was wondering if you happen  to have
a copy of the Peter Brook  production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in your video
collection. I’ve been looking for it everywhere and I am having a really hard time
tracking it down.   


Professor
That’s because it doesn’t exist.   

Student
You mean in your collection ? Or at all?

Professor
I mean at all. That particular production was never filmed or recorded.   

Student
Oh no. I had no idea. From what  I  read, that production, like, it influenced every
other production of the play that came after it. So  I  just assumed it had been filmed
or videotaped.   

Professor
Oh,  It definitely was a landmark production.  And it’s not like it ran for just a week,
but either it was never filmed or if it was the  film’s been lost. And it’ s ironic because
there’s even a film about the making of the production, but none of the production
itself.   

Student
So now what do I do? If there is no video.   

Professor
Well, think about it. This is the most important 20th
century staging of A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, right?

Student
But how can I  write about Brook’s interpretation of the play if  I  can’t see his
production.   

Professor
Just because there’s no recording doesn’t mean you can’t figure out how it
influenced other productions.   

Student
Yeah, I guess there’s enough material around, but it will be a challenge.   

Professor
True. But think about it, you are writing about dramatic arts, the theater, and that ’s
the nature of theater, isn’t it?

Student
You mean because it is live, when the performance is finished ...

Professor
That’s it. Unless it’ s filmed, it’s gone. But that doesn’t mean we can’t study it. And of
course some students in this class are writing about productions in the 19th
century,
there are no videos of those.其他人可以,你也可以 You know, one of the challenges for people who study
theater is to find way of talking about something that ’s really so transient, about
something that, in a sense, doesn’t exist.

TPO 17 Lecture 1 Art History(Prehistoric Art Dating)

Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.

Professor
Good morning, ready to continue our review of prehistoric art? Today, we will be
covering the Upper Paleolithic Period, which I am roughly defining as the period from
35,000 to 8,000 BC. A lot of those cave drawings you have all seen come from this
period. But we are also be talking about portable works of art, things that could be
carried around from place to place. Here is one example.   
This sculpture is called  the  Lady  with the  Hood1
, and it was  carved from ivory,
probably a mammoth’s tusk.  Its age is a bit of a mystery. According to one source, it
dates from 22,000 BC. But other sources claimed it has been dated closer to 30,000
BC. Amy?

Amy
Why don’t we know the exact date when this head was made?

Professor
That’s a fair question. We are talking about prehistory here.  So obviously the artists
didn’t put a signature or a date on anything they did. So how do we know when this
figure was carved?

Tom
Last semester  I  took an archaeology class and we spent a lot time on,  studying ways
to date things. One technique I remember was using the location of an object to date
it, like how deep it was buried.   

Professor
That would be  Stratigraphy. Stratigraphy is used for dating  portable art.  When
archaeologists are digging at a site, they make very careful notes about which
stratum(strata), which layer of earth they find things in. And, you know, the general
rule is that the oldest layers are at the lowest level.  But this only works if the site
                                                                 
hasn’t been touched, and the layers are intact. A problem with this dating method is
that an object could have been carried around, used for several generations before it
was discarded. So it might be much older than the layer or even the site where it was
found.  The  stratification technique  gives us the minimum age of an object, which
isn’t necessarilly its true age. Tom, in your archaeology class, did you talk about
radiocarbon dating?   

Tom
Yeah, we did. That had to do with chemical analysis, something to do with measuring
the amount of radiocarbon that’s left in organic stuff. Because we know how fast
radiocarbon decays, we can figure out the age of the organic material.   

Professor
The key word there is organic. Is art made of organic material?  

Tom
Well, you said the lady with the hood was carved out of ivory. That ’s organic.

Professor
Absolutely. Any other examples?

Amy
Well, when they did those cave drawings.  Didn’t they use, like  chacoal  or maybe
colors, dyes made from plants?

Professor
Fortunately, they did, at least some of the time.  So it turns out that radiocarbon
dating works for a lot of prehistoric art. But again there’s a problem. This technique
destroys what it analyzes, so you have to chip off  bits of the object for testing.
Obviously we are reluctant to do that in some cases.  And apart from that, there’s
another problems. The date tells you the age of the material, say, a bone or a tree,
the object is made from, but not the date when the artist actually created it. So, with
radiocarbon dating, we get the maximum possible age for the object, but it could be
younger.
Ok, let’ s say our scientific analysis has produced an age range.  Can we narrow it
down?   

Amy
Could we look for similar styles or motives?  You know, try to find things common to
one time period.

Professor
We do that all the time.  And when we see similiarities in pieces of art, we assume
some connection in time or place.  But is it possible that we could be imposing our
own values on that analysis?   

Tom
I am sorry. I don’t get your point.   语气题

Professor
Well, we have all kinds of pre-conceived ideas about how artistic styles develop.  For
example, a lot of people think the presence of details demonstrates that the work
was done by a more sophisticated artist. While a lack of detail suggests a primitive
style. But trends in art in the last century or so certainly challenge that idea.  Don’t
get me wrong though, analyzing the styles of prehistoric art can help dating them.
But we need to be careful with the idea that artistic development occurs in a straight
line, from simple to complex representations.  

Amy
What you are saying is,  I mean,  I get the feeling that this is like a legal process, like
building a legal case, the more pieces of evidence we have, the closer we get to the
truth.  

Professor
Great analogy.  And now you can see why we  don’t  have an exact date for our
sculpture, the lady with the hood.  

   

TPO 17 Lecture 2 Environmental Science(Milankovitch Hypothesis)

Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in an environmental science class.

Professor
Ok, so we have been talking about theories that deal with the effects of human
activity on the climate. But today  I’d like to talk a little bit about other theories that
can explain variations in climate.  And one of the best-known is called the
Milankovitch Hypothesis.   

Now  what  the Milankovitch Hypothesis is about?  It says that variations in earth’s
movements, specifically in its orbit around the sun, these variations lead to
differences in the amount of solar energy that reaches the earth. main focus And it is these
differences in the amount of energy that’s reaching earth from the sun, it is what
causes variations in earth’s climate.   

Ok, a lot of people think of earth’s orbit around the sun as being perfectly circular, as
smooth and as regular as, say, the way that hands move on a well -made watch, but it
just doesn’t work that way. You are probably aware that the earth’s orbit around the
sun, it is not shaped like a perfect circle.  It is more of an oval, it is elliptical. But the
shape of this orbit isn’t consistent, it varies over time, over a period of about a
thousand years. Sometimes it is a little more  circular, sometimes it is more elliptical.
And when earth’s orbit is more elliptical, earth is actually closer to the sun during
part of the year.  Which makes earth, and in particular, the northern hemisphere,
warmer. And why is that important? well, because most of the planet’s glaciers are in
the northern hemisphere, and if it gets too warm, then glaciers will stop forming.
And we’ve already talked about how that affects earth’s overall temperature.   

The second movement involved in the hypothesis has to do with axial tilt. The tilt of
earth’s axis, that imaginery pole that runs through the center of the earth.  And
depending on the angle it tilts at, the seasons can be more or less severe. It makes
winters cooler and summers warmer, or what some might say  it is doing now, it
makes summers less hot, and more importantly, the winters less cold. Which just like
what I mentioned before, can also stop, prevent glaciers from forming, or cause them
to melt.   

There is a third movement  the  hypothesis covers called  precession. Precession,
basically is the change in the direction of earth’s axis of rotation.  It will take me a
million years to explain even just the basics of this movement as precession is quite
complex. And all these details are way beyond our scope. What’s important for you
to understand is that these three movements, well, they are cyclical, and they work
together to form, to produce complex but regular variations in earth’s climate, and
lead to the growth or decline of glaciers.   

Now, when Milankovitch first proposed this theory in the 1920s, many of his
colleagues were skeptical. Milankovitch  didn’t  have any proof.  Actually there
wouldn’t be any evidence to support his hypothesis until the 1970s,  when
oceanographers were able to drill deep into the seafloor and collect samples,
samples which were then analyzed by geologists. And from these samples they were
able to put together a history of ocean temperatures going back hundreds of
thousands of years, and this showed that earth’s climate had changed pretty much
the way Milankovitch’s hypothesis suggested it would.  So this evidence was pretty
strong support for the Milankovitch Hypothesis.  And by the 1980s, most people
accepted this theory.  

However, in the late 1980s, some scientists were exploring  Devil’ s Hole, 考例子which is
basically an extensive water-filled cave, far from the ocean, in  Nevada2
, in the western United States. Over millions of years, groundwater left deposits of a mineral
called calcite3
, on the rock within Devil’s Hole. And by studying these clacite deposits,
we can determine the climate conditions, the temperatures over the last half million
years.  Well, the Devil’ s Hole findings contradicted the ones obtained during the
1970s, so basically the question was, were the ages of one or both the samples were
wrong, or were scientists misunderstanding the significance of the evidence.   

Well, in the 1990s, a new study was done on the two samples. And the ocean floor
samples were found to be correct, as were the samples from Devil’s Hole. And now it
is generally  believed that the sample from Devil’s Hole correspond to variations in
local climate, in the western United States, rather than global climate changes.   

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 17 Conversation 2

Narrator
Listen to a conversation between a student and a food service manager.  

Student
Excuse me, Mrs. Hanson. My name is John, John Grant.  I work as a waiter in the
campus dining hall, in the faculty dining room.  

Manager
What can I do for you, John?

Student
Well,  I work week nights, except for  Friday. I was wondering if I could switch from
working the dinner service to working at lunch.   

Manager
That’s going to be a problem. I am afraid we don’t have any openings at lunch time. A
lot of students want to work then, so it is really rare for us to have an open spot at
that time of day.  

Student
Oh, you see,  I have joined this group, the University Jazz Band, and the band’s
practice time is right around dinner time. You know, it is so hard to get into this group,
I must have  auditioned  like ten times since I have been at the school, so I am ...
Anyway, so I was really hoping to have the dinner hour free so  I can go to practice.   

Manager
Well, we do have other open times, like breakfast.   

Student
Eh, that won’t work,  I am sorry.  I mean that,  I can’t work that early.  I have this very
important music class I  got to take, and it is like, first thing in the morning.  


Manager
Well, if you don’t mind working in the kitchen, we’ve got some pretty flexible hours
for students doing food-prep work, anything from early morning to late afternoon.   

Student
What’s prep work?   

Manager
You prepare food for the cooks.  You know, like cutting up vegetables for soup, or
cleaning greens for salads.

Student
Oh, that doesn’t sound,  I mean... Being a waiter,  I get to see a lot of the professors,
like in a different light, we joke around a little you know. In the classroom, they
always have to be pretty formal, but ...  

Manager
Well, the money is no different since we pay students the same amount for any of
the jobs here in food service, so it’s up to you.  

Student
Oh, man. I always thought that sacrificing for my art, that’d mean working long hours
as a musician for, like, no money. I didn’t think it’d mean, peeling carrots.

Manager
Let me see,  I  am offering you something that has the hours you want, it is right here
on campus, and you make as much money as you did being a waiter, quite a sacrifice. 语气题

Student
I am sorry, I know you are just trying to help. I guess I should look into the food-prep
job.

Manager
Ok, then,  I’ll tell the kitchen manager that you will stop by tomorrow to talk about
the job and schedule your hours. And  I will let the dining hall manager know that he
needs to find a new waiter for the evening.

Student
Oh, ok, I guess that’ s it. Thanks, Mrs. Hanson.


TPO 17 Lecture 3 History(Ancient Egyptian Calendar)

Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a history class. The professor has been discussing ancient
Egypt.

Professor
Ok, so one of the challenges that faced  ancient civilizations like Egypt was
timekeeping, calendars. When you have to grow food  for whole cities of people, it is
important to plant your crops at the right time. And when you start having  financial
obligations, rents, taxes, you have to keep track of how often you pay.

So today we will look at how the Egyptians adressed these problems. In fact, they
ended up using two calendars, one to keep track of the  natural world, or their
agriculture concerns, and another one, that was used to keep track of the  business
functions of the Kingdom. So let’s  take a  look at  the hows and whys of one ancient
Egyptian calendar system, starting with the Nile River.

Why the Nile? Well, there’s no other way to put it. Egyptian life basically revolved
around the mysterious rise and fall of the river. The success of their agriculture
system depended upon them knowing when the river would change.  So, naturally,
their first calendar was divided up into three seasons, each based on the river ’s
changes: inundation, subsidence and harvest.   

The first season was the flooding, or inundation, when the Nile valley was essentially
submerged in water for a few months or so.  And afterwards during the season of
subsidence, the water would subside, or recede, revealing a new layer of fertile black
silt and allowing for the planting of various crops.  And finally the time of the year
would arrive when the valley would produce crops, such as wheat, barley, fruit, all
ready to harvest. Ok, so it was important to the ancient Egyptians to know when
their Nile based seasons would occur, their way of life depended upon it.   

Now, the way they used to count time was based on the phases of the moon, which,
regularly and predictably, goes through a cycle, starting with a new moon, then to a
full moon, and back again to the new moon. Now this cycle wes then used to
determine the length of their month. So, um, one lunar cycle was one Egyptian
month, and about four of the months would constitute a season. Now, 12 of these
months was an approximately 354-day year. So they had a 354-day agricultural
calendar that was designed to help them determine when the Nile would inunadate

the land.   

Well, of course it had to be more complicated than that. The average amount of time
between floodings wasn’t actually 354 days.  I mean, although it varies, the average
was clearly longer than 354 days.  So how did they keep this short calendar in step
with the actual flooding of the Nile?

Well, their astronomers had discovered that at a certain time of year the brightest
star, Sirius, would disappear. Actually, it’d be hidden in the glare of the Sun. And then,
a couple of months later, one morning in the eartern sky just  before dawn, Sirius
would reappear. And it happened regularly, about every 365 days. Even more
significantly, the reappearance of Sirius would occur around the same time as the
Nile’s flooding. And this annual event is called a heliacal rising4.


The  heliacal rising was a fair indicator of when the Nile would flood.  The next new
moon, after the heliacal rising of Sirius, which happened  in the  last month of the
calendar year, marked the New Year. And because the ancient Egyptians were using
the lunar cycle in combination with this heliacal rising, some years ended up having
12 lunar months, while others had 13 lunar calender months, if Sirius didn’t rise in
the 12th
month.   

Even though the length of the agricultural calendar still fluctuated, with some  years
having 12 months and others having 13, it ended up being much more reliable than it
was before. They continually adjusted it to the heliacal rising of Sirius, ensuring that
they never got too far off in their seasons. This new calendar was ideal, because, well,
it worked well for agricultural purposes as well as for knowing when to have
traditional religious festivals. So, that was their first calendar.  

But was it any way to run a government?  They  didn’t  think so.  For administrative
purposes, it was  very inconvenient to have years of different lengths.  So another
calendar was introduced, an administrative one. Probably soon after 3,000 BC, they
declared a 365-day year, with 12 months per year, with exactly 30 days each month,
with an extra 5 days at the end of each year. This administrative calendar existed
alongside the earlier agricultural and religious calendar that depended on the
heliacal rising of Sirius.  This administrative calendar was much easier to use for
things like scheduling taxes and other things that had to be paid on time. Over time,
the calendar got out of step with seasons and the flooding of the Nile, but for
bureaucratic purposes, they didn’t mind.   


TPO 17 Lecture 4 Biology(Octopus)

Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.  

Professor
Ok, now  I  want to talk about an animal that has a fascinating set of defense
mechanisms. And that’s the octopus, one of the unusual creatures that live in the sea.
The octopus is prey to many species, including humans, so how does it escape its
predators?   
Well, let me back up here a second. Anyone ever heard of Proteous? Proteus was a
God in Greek mythology who could change form. He could make himself look like a
lion or a stone or a tree, anything you wanted, and he could go through a whole
series of changes very quickly.   
Well, the octopus is the real world version of Proteus.  Just like Proteus, the octopus
can go through all kinds of incredible transformations. And it does this in three ways:
by changing color, by changing its texture, and by changing its size and shape.
For me, the most fascinating transformation is when it changes its color.  It’s a normal
skin color, the one it generally presents, is either red or brown or even grey, and it ’s
speckled with dark spots. But when it wants to blend in with its environment to hide
from its enemies, it can take on the color of its immediate surroundings: the ocean
floor, a rock, a piece of coral, whatever. Charles?

Student
Do we know how that works, I mean, how they change colors?

Professor
Well, we know that the reaction that takes place is not chemical in nature. The color
changes are executed by two different kinds of cells in the octopus ’ skin, mainly by
color cells on the skin’s surface call chromatophores
5
.
Chromatophores consist of tiny sacks filled with color dye. There might be a couple
hundred of these color sacks per square millimeter of the octopus’ skin, and
depending on the species, they can come in as many as five different colors.  Each
one of these sacks is controlled by muscles.  If the muscles are relaxed, the sack
shrinks, and all you see is a little white point. But if the muscle’s contract, then the
sack expands, and you can see the colors. And by expanding different combinations

Student
And just with various combinations of those five colors, they can recreate any color
in their environment?

Professor
Well, they can no doubt create a lot with just those five colors, but you  are right,
maybe they can’t mimic every color around them, so that’s where the second kind of
cell comes in.   
Just below the chromatophores is a layer of cells that reflect light from the
environment, and these cells help the octopus create a precise match with the colors
that surround them.  The colors from the color sacks are supplemented with colors
that are reflected from the environment, and that ’s how they are able to mimic
colors with such precision. So, that’s how octopus mimic colors.
But they  don’t  just mimic the colors in their environment; they can alos mimic the
texture of objects in their environment.  They have these little  projections  on their
skin that allow them to resemble various textures.  The projections are called
papillae6.  
If the octopus wants to have a rough texture, it raises the papillae.  If it
wants to have a smooth texture, it flattens out the papillae, so it can acquire a
smooth texture to blend in with the sandy bottom of the sea.   
So the octopus has the ability to mimic both the color and the texture of its
environment.  And it’s truly amazing how well it can blend in with its surroundings.
You can easily swim within a few feet of an octopus and never see it.  

Student
I  read that they often hide from predators by squirting out a cloud of ink, or
something like that.  

Professor
Yes. The octopus can release a cloud of ink if it feels threatened.  But it doesn’t hide
behind it, as is generally believed. Um, the ink cloud is ... it serves to distract a
predator while the octopus makes its escape.   
Um, now there’s a third way that octopus can transform themselves to blend in with
or mimic their environment, and that’s by changing their shape and size, well, at
least their apparent size.   
The muscular system of the octopus enables it to be very flexible to assume all sorts
of shapes and postures. So it can contract into the shape of a little round stone, and
sit perfectly still on the seafloor. Or it can nestle up7
  in the middle of a plant and take
the shape of one of the leaves. Even Proteus would be impressed, I think.  

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO-18 Conversation 1

A: Hi ! I hope you can help me . I just transferred from Northeastern State University near Chicago.
B: Well welcome to Central University. But Chicago is such a great city. Why did you leave?
A: Everyone asks that. It’s my hometown. And it was sure convenient to go to a school nearby. But Northeastern is still fairly small. And it doesn’t have the program I’m interested in. I want to major in international studies. And the only program int the State is here.
A: We do have a great program. Well how did you get interested in international studies?
B: My family hosted a few foreign exchange students while I was growing up. Then I took part in an international summer program after I graduated from high school. I thought I really I like meeting people from all over, getting to know them.
A: OH! Ok! And that led you to our program. Right now though I think you are looking for a job.
B: Yeah, a part time job on campus. I thought I’d save money ,being away from the big city. But it doesn’t seem to be working that way .Anyway I’m not having much luck. main purpose
A: I’m not surprised. Most of our campus jobs are taken in the first week or two of the semester. What work experience have you had?
B: Well, I worked in the university library last year. But I already checked at the library here. They said their remaining positions were for work-study students getting financial aid. I’ve never run into that before.
A: Well, I guess each school has its own policies. Uh, we really don’t have much right now. You might be better. If you really want something, how are your computer skills?
B: About average I’d say. I helped teach some of the basic computer classes. Northeastern offers for new users, if that helps any.
A: OK, The technology support department needs people to work its helpdesk. It’s basically a customer service job, answering questions, helping people solve their computer proplems,give you a chance to develop your people skills.
B: Something every diplomat needs. But is there some problem? I mean why is the job still open?
A: Well, they have extended hours, from 6am to 2am every day. So they need a large staff. But right now they only need people early mornings, late nights, and weekends. You’d probably end up with a bit of everything rather than a regular spot. On the bright side you’ll probably be able to get some studying done between calls. At least it could be a start and then you can try for better hours next semester .
B: Um, I see why the hours might be a problem. But I guess I can’t afford to be too picky if I want a job. Still maybe we can work something out..


TPO 18 Lecture 1 Astronomy

We are going to start a study of sunspots today,开门见山 and I think you’ll find it rather interesting. Now I’m going to assume that you know that sunspots, in the most basic terms, are dark spots on the Sun’s surface. That will do for now. The ancient Chinese were the first to record observations of sunspots as early as the year 165. When later European astronomers wrote about sunspots, they didn’t believe that the spots were actually on the Sun. That’s because of their belief at the time that the heavenly bodies, the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Planets, were perfect, without any flaws or blemishes. So the opinion was the spots were actually something else, like shadows of planets crossing the Sun’s face. And this was the thinking of European astronomers until the introduction of the telescope, which brings us to our old friend, Galileo.考例子 In the early 1600s, based on his observations of sunspots. Galileo proposed a new hypothesis. He pointed out that the shape of sunspots, well, the sunspots weren’t circular. If they were shadows of the planets, they would be circular, right? So that was a problem for the prevailing view. And he also noticed that the shape of the sunspots changed as they seemed to move across the Sun’s surface. 下面部分结构不明
Maybe a particular sunspot was sort of square, then later it would become more lopsided, then later something else. So there is another problem with the shadow hypothesis, because the shape of a planet doesn’t change. What Galileo proposed was that sunspots were indeed a feature of the Sun, but he didn’t know what kind of feature. He proposed that they might be clouds in the atmosphere, the solar atmosphere, especially because they seemed to change shape and there was no predicting the changes, at least nothing Galileo could figure out. That random shape changing would be consistent with the spots being clouds. Over the next couple hundred years, a lot of hypotheses were tossed around. The spots were mountains or holes in the solar atmosphere through which the dark surface of the Sun could be seen. Then in 1843, astronomer named Heinrich Schwa be made an interesting claim, Trobe had been watching the Sun every day that it was visible for 17 years, looking for evidence of a new planet. And he started keeping tracks of sunspots, mapping them, so he wouldn’t confuse them, so he wouldn’t confuse them with any potential new planet. In the end, there was no planet, but there was evidence that the number of sunspots increased and decreased in a pattern, a pattern that began repeating after 10 years, and that was a huge breakthrough. Another astronomer named Wolf kept track of the Sun for an even longer period, 40 years actually. So Wolf did 40 years of research, and Trobe did 17 years of research. I think there is a lesson there. Anyway, Wolf went though all records from various observatories in Europe and put together a history of sunspot observations going back about 100 years. From this information, he was able to confirm the existence of a pattern, a repeating cycle but Wolf detected an 11-year cycles? Dose that sound familiar to anyone? No? Well, geomagnetic activity, the natural variations in Earth’s magnetic field, it fluctuates in 11-year cycles. Well, we’ll cover this later in this semester, but for now, well, scientists in the late 19th century were aware of geomagnetic cycles, so when they heard that the sunspots’ cycle was also 11 years, well, they just had to find out what was going on. Suddenly, everyone was doing studies of the possible relationship between the Sun and the Earth. Did the sunspots cause the geomagnetic fields or did the geomagnetic fields cause the sunspots? Or is there some other thing that caused both? And astronomers did eventually figure out what sunspots had to do with magnetic fields. And the fact that sunspots are magnetic fields accounts for their dark appearance. That’s because magnetic fields reduce the pressure exerted on the gases inside of them, making the spots cooler than the rest of the Sun’s surface. And since they are cooler, they are darker.


TPO 18 Lecture 2 Art History

A: Today we’ll continue our examination of ancient Roman sculpture. We’ve already looked at portrait sculpture which are busts created to commemorate people who had died, and we’ve looked at relief sculpture, or sculpting on walls. And today we’ll look at yet another category of sculpture-made copies of famous Greek sculptures.
B: Why did they do that?
A: Well no one knows for sure. You see, in the late 4th century B.C., the Romans began a campaign to expand the Roman Empire, and in 300 years they had conquered most of the Mediterranean area and parts of Europe. You know the saying, copies. Roman sculptors often “To the victor belong the spoils”? Well, the Roman army returned to Rome with many works of Greek art. It’s probably fair to say that the Romans were impressed be Greek art and culture and they began making copies of the Greek statues. Now the dominant view in traditional art his that Roman artists lacked creativity and skill especially compared to the Greek artists who came before them. Essentially, the traditional view, a view that’s been prevalent for over 250 years, is that the Romans copied Greek sculptures because they couldn’t create sculpture of their own. But finally some contemporary art historians have challenged this view. One is Elaine Gazda . Gazda says that there might be other reasons that Romans made copies. She wasn’t convinced that it was because of a lack of creativity. Can anyone think of another possible reason?

B:Well maybe they just admired these sculptures. You know, they liked the way they looked.

Yes. That’s one of Gazda’s points. Another is that while nowadays reproduction is easy, it was not so easy in Roman times. Copying statues required a lot of skill, time and effort. So Gazda hypothesizes that copying didn’t indicate a lack of artistic imagination or skill on the part of Roman artists, but rather the Romans made copies because they admired Greek sculpture. Classical Greek statues represented an idealization of the human body and were considered quite beautiful at the time. Gazda also believes that it’s been a mistake to dismiss the Roman copies as, well, copies for copy’s sake and not to consider the Roman function and meaning of the statues.

B: What do you mean the Roman function? Weren’t they just for decoration?

A: Well, not necessarily. Under the Emperor Augustus at the height of the Roman Empire, portrait statues were sent throughout the empire. They were supposed to communicate specific ideas about the emperor and the imperial family and to help inhabitants of the conquered areas become familiar with the Roman coins 考例子were also distributed throughout the empire. Anybody care to guess what was on them?
   The emperor’s face? That’s right! The coins were easy to distribute and they allowed people to see the emperor or at least his likes and served as an additional reminder to let them know, well, who was in charge. And the images helped people become familiar with the emperor. Statues of him in different roles were sent all over the empire. Now, actually some Roman sculptures were original but others were exact copies of Greek statues and some Roman sculptures were combinations of some sort. Some combined more than one Greek statue and others combined a Greek god or an athlete with a Roman’s head. At the time of Julius Caesar, I wasn’t uncommon to create statues that had the body of a god and the head of an emperor. And the Romans were clever. What they did was they made plaster casts from molds of the sculptures. Then they shipped these plaster casts to workshops all over the empire, where they were replicated in marble or bronze. And on some statues the heads were removable. They could put an emperor’s head on different bodies, showing him doing different things. And then later when then time came they could even use the head of the next emperor on the same body.

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 18 Conversation 2

A: Well, I’m glad you redid your outline. I fed a few comments, but nothing you have to act on. It’s in good enough shape for you to start writing you paper.
B: Thanks! At first I was afraid all that prep work would be a waste of time.
A: Well, especially with a challenging topic like yours: factors leading to the emergence of sociology as an academic discipline. There’s just so much history to consider; you could get lost without a solid outline. So did you have a question?
B: Yeah, it’s about…you mentioned needing volunteers for a research study?
A: Yep, it’s not my study. It’s my colleague’s in the marketing department. She needs people to watch various new TV programs that haven’t been broadcast yet, then indicate on a survey whether they liked it, why, if they’d watch another episode. It’d be kind of fun plus participants get a $50 gift certificate.
B: Wow, well I like the sound of that. But…so they are trying to predict if the shows are gonna succeed or fail, right, based on students’ opinions? Why would they care what we think?
A: Hey, don’t sell yourself short. People your age are a very attractive market for advertisers who promote their products on television. The study is sponsored by a TV network. If enough students don’t like the show, the network may actually reconsider putting it on the air.
B: OK, well, how do I sign up?
A: You just add your name and phone number to this list and check a time slot, although it looks like the only times left are next Monday morning and Thursday evening.
B: Oh, well, I have marketing and economics Monday mornings and Thursday.
A: OH, you are taking the marketing class? Who’s teaching it?
B: It’s Professor Largin - Intro to Marketing. Hr hasn’t mentioned the study though.
A: Oh, well, the marketing department’s pretty big. I happen to be friends with a woman who is doing the TV study. Ok, well, we don’t want you missing class. How’s Thursday?
B: Oh, I work from 5 till 9 that night. Hmm, no flexibility with your schedule? Where do you work?
A: Oh, I like Fox’s. I eat there every week. Maybe you could switch shifts with someone.
B: I’m still in training. And the only night my trainer works is Thursday. Look!
A: I know the owners there really well. Why don’t you let me give them a call and explain the situation?
B: OK! It’d be cool to be part of a real research study. And the gift certificate wouldn’t hurt either.

TPO 18 Lecture 3 European History

In order to really study the social history of the Middle Ages, you have to understand the role of spices. Now, this might sound a little spurring, even a little strange. But what seem like little things now were back then actually rather big things. So first let’s define what a spice is. Technically speaking, a spice is part of an aromatic plant that is not a leaf or herb. Spices can come from tree bark like cinnamon, plant roots like ginger, flower buds like cloves. And in the Middle Ages. Europeans were familiar with lots of different spices, most important being pepper, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, maize and nutmeg. These spices literarily dominated the way Europeans lived for centuries, how they traded and even how they used their imaginations. So why this medieval fascination with spices? We can boil it down to there general ideas briefly. One was cost and rarity. Uh two was exotic taste and fragrance. And third, mysterious origins and kinds of mythical status. Now for cost and rarity, spices aren’t native to Europe and they had to be imported. Spices only grew in the East Indies and of course transportation costs were incredibly valuable even from the very beginning. Here is an example. In 408 AD, the Gothic General who captured Rome demanded payment. He wanted 5000 pounds of gold among other things but he also wanted 3000 pounds of pepper. Maybe that would give you an idea of exactly where pepper stood at the time. By the Middle Ages, spices were regarded as so important and expensive they were used in diplomacy, as gifts by heads of state and ambassadors. Now for the taste. The diet then was relatively bland, compared to today’s. There wasn’t much variety. Especially the aristocracy who tended to eat a lot of meat, they were always looking for new ways to prepare it, new sources, new tastes and this is where spices came in. Now, this is a good point to mention one of the biggest myths about spices. It’s commonly said that medieval Europeans wanted spices to cover up the taste of spoiled meat. But this isn’t really true. Anyone who had to worry about spoiled meat couldn’t afford spices in the first place. If you could afford spices, you could definitely afford fresh meat. We also have evidence that various medieval markets employed a kind of police to make sure that people did not sell spoiled food, and if you were caught doing it, you were subject to various fines, humiliating public punishments. So what actually was true was this: In order to have meat for the winter, people would preserve it in salt, not a spice. Spices actually aren’t very effective as preservatives. And throughout winter, they would eat salted meat, but the taste of the stuff could grow really boring and depressing after a while. So the cook started looking for new ways to improve the taste and spices were the answer, which brings us to mysterious origins and mythical status. Now the ancient Romans had a thriving spice trade and they sent their ships to the east and back. But when Rome collapsed in the fifth century and the Middle Ages began, direct trade stopped, and so did that kind of hands-on knowledge of travel and geography. Spices now came by way of the trade routes with lots of intermediaries between the producer and the consumer. So these spices took on an air of mystery. Their origins were shrouded in exotic travels. They had the allure of the unknown, of wild places. Myths grew up of fantasy lands, magical faraway places made entirely of food and spices. And to that, spices themselves had always been considered special or magical not just for eating and this was already true in the ancient world where legends about spices were abundant. Spices inspired the medieval imagination. They were used as medicines to ward off diseases, and mixed into perfumes, incent. They were used in religious rituals for thousands of years. They took on a life of their own and they inspired the medieval imagination, spurred on the age of discovery in the 145th and 16th centuries. When famous explorers like Columbus and da Gama and Magellan left Europe in their ships, they weren’t looking for a new world.; they were looking for spices. And we know what important historical repercussions some of those voyages had.


TPO 18 Lecture 4 Biology

A：Well, it’s finally looking like spring is arriving. The last of the winter snow would be melting away in a few days. So before we close today, I thought I’d mention a biological event that’s a part of the transition from winter to spring, something you can go outside and watch if you have some patience. There is a small creature that lives in this area; you’ve probably seen it. It’s the North American wood frog. Now the wood frog’s not that easy tosspot since it stays pretty to close to the ground, under leaves and things and it blends in really well with its background as you can see. But they are worth the effort because they do something very unusual, something you might not have even thought possible. OK North American wood frogs live over a very broad territory or range. They’re found all over the northeastern United States and all through Canada and Alaska, even inside the Arctic Circle. No other frog is able to live that far and north. But wherever they live, once the weather starts to turn cold and the temperature starts to drop below freezing, as soon as the frog even touches an ice crystal or a bit of frozen ground, well, it begins to freeze. Yeah...yes to me. You look a little bit taken aback.
B: Wait, you mean it’s still alive but it freezes, solid?
A: Well, almost. Ice forms in all the spaces outside the cells but never within a cell.
B: But… then how does its heart beat?
A: It doesn’t.
B: But…then how could it…….
A: You are gonna do such a thing? Well, that first touch of ice apparently triggers a biological response inside the frog. That first of all starts drawing water away from the center of its body, so the middle part of the frog, its internal organs, its heart, lungs, liver, these start getting drier and drier while the water that’s being pulled away is forming a puddle around the organs just underneath the skin. And then that puddle of water starts to freeze. OK, up to known, the frog’s heart is still beating, right? Slower and slower but…and in those last few hours before it freezes, it distributes glucose, a blood sugar throughout its body, its circulatory system, sort of acts like an an antifreeze.
B: A solution of antifreeze like you put in your car in the winter?
A: Well, you tell me. In frogs, the extra glucose makes it harder for the winter inside the cells to freeze. So the cells stay just slightly wet, enough so that they can survive the winter. Then after that, the heart stops beating altogether. So is that the same?
B: I don’t really know, but how long dose it stay that way?
A: Well, it could be days or months, all winter in fact but umm, see the heart really doesn’t need to do any pumping now because the blood is frozen too.
B: I just, I guess I just don’t see how it isn’t, you know, clinically dead.
A: Well, that’s the amazing thing and how it revives is pretty amazing too. After months without a heartbeat, spring time came around again, the earth starts to warm up and suddenly one day, ping, a pulse, followed by another one, then another until maybe ten, twelve hours later, the animal is fully recovered.
B: And does the thawing process have some kind of trigger as well?
A: Well, we are not sure actually, the clearer thing is even though the sun is warning the frog up on the outside, its inside thaw out first, the heart and brain and everything. But somehow it all just happens that way every spring.
B: But after they thaw does it affect them like their lifespan?
A: Well, hmm, we really don’t know a lot about how long a wood frog normally lives, probably just a few years but there is no evidence its longevity. It does have some other impacts though. In studies, we found that when it comes to reproduction, freezing diminishes the mating performance of males. After they’ve been frozen and thawed of course, they don’t seem quite as vocal. They move slower and they seem to have a harder time recognizing a potential mate. So if the male frog could manage not to go through this freezing cycle, he’d probably have more success in mating.

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 19 Conversation 1
Listen to a conversation between a student and the professor.

Student
Hi, professor Handerson. That was a really interesting lecture in class today.

Professor
Thanks, Tom. Yeah, animals’ use of deception, ways they play tricks on other animals, that’s a fascinating area.
One we are really just starting to understand.   

Student
Yeah, you know, selective adaptations over time are one thing. Oh, like, non-poisonous butterflies, that have
come to look like poisonous ones. But the idea that animals of the same species intentionally deceive each other,
I have never heard that before.   

Professor
Right, like, there are male frogs who lower their voices and end up sounding bigger than they really are.   

Student
So they do that to keep other frogs from invading their territory ?

Professor
Right, bigger frogs have deeper voices, so if a smaller frog can imitate that deep voice. Well ...

Student
Yeah,  I can see how that might do  the trick. But, anyway, what  I wanted to ask was, when you started talking
about game theory. Well, I know a little bit about it, but I am not clear about its use in biology.   

Professor
3
Yeah, it  is  fairly new to biology.  Basically, it uses math to predict what an individual would do under certain
circumstances. But for example, a buisness sells, oh computer, say, and they want to sell their computers to a big
university. But there is another company bidding too. So, what should they do?

Student
Well, try to offer the lowest price so they can compete, but still make money.   

Professor
Right, they are competing, like a game, like the frogs. There are risks with pricing too high, the other company
might get the sale, there is also the number and types of computers to consider. Each company has to find a
balance between the cost and benefits. Well, game theory creates mathematical models that analyze different
conditions like this to predict outcomes.   

Student
Ok, I get that. But how does it apply to animals ?

Professor
Well, you know, if you are interested in this topic, it would be perfect for your term paper.   

Student
The literature review ?   

Professor
Yeah, find three journal articles about this  or another topic that interests you  and discuss them.  If there is a
confict in the conclusions or something, that would be important to discuss.   

Student
Well, from what I have looked at dealing with game theory, I can’t say I understand much of the statistics end.   

Professor
Well, I can point you to some that presents fairly basic studies, that don’t assume much background knowledge.
You’ll just need to answer a few specific questions: What was the researchers’ hypothesis? What did they want to find out?  And how did they conduct their research? An then the conclusions they came to.  Learning to
interpret these statistics will come later.   

TPO 19 Lecture 1 Linguistics(Proto-Indo-European)

Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a linguistics class.

Professor
All right, so far we have been looking at some of the core areas of linguistics, like syntax, phonology, semantics,
and these are things that we can study by looking at one  language at a time, how sounds, and words, and
sentences work in a given language. But the branch of historical linguistics, involves the comparison of several
different languages, or the comparison of different stages of a single language.   

Now, if you are comparing different languages, and you notice that they have a lot in common. Maybe they have
similar sounds and words that correspond to one another that have the same meaning and that sound similar.   

Let’s use a real-world example.  In the 18th century, scholars who have studied the ancient languages, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek, noticed that these three languages had many similarities. And there might be several reasons why languages such as these had so much in common. Maybe it happened by chance, maybe one language was heavily influenced by borrowed words from the other. Or maybe, maybe the languages developed from the same source language  long ago, that is, maybe  they are genetically related, that was what happened with Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. These languages had so many similarities that it was concluded that they must have all come from the same source. And talk about important discoveries in linguistics, this was certainly one of them.   

The scholars  referred to that source language as Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European  is a reconstructed language. Meaning, it is what linguists concluded a parent language of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek would have to be like. And Proto-Indo-European branched out into other languages, which evolved into others, so in the end, many languages spoken all over the world today can trace their ancestry back to one language, Proto-Indo-European, which was spoken several thousand years ago.   

Now, one way of representing the evolution of languages, showing the way languages are related to each other, is with the  family tree model.  Like a family tree that you might use to trace back through generations of ancestors, only it’s  showing  a family of geneticall related languages instead of people.  A  tree model for a language family starts with one language, which we call a mother language, for example, Proto-Indo-European. The mother language, is the line on the top of this diagram, over time, it branches off into new daughter languages, which branch into daughter languages of their own, and languages that have the same source, the same mother, are called sisters, they share a lot of characteristics, and this went on until we are looking at a big upside down tree languages like this. It is incomplete of course, just to give you an idea. So that’s the family tree model, basically.   

Now, the tree model is a convenient way of representing the development of a language family and of showing how closely related two of more languages are.  But it is obviously very simplified, having a whole language represented by just one branch on a tree doesn’t really do justice to all the variations within that language. You know, Spanish that spoken in Spain isn’t exactly the same as Spanish that is spoken in Mexico, for example.   

Another issue is that languages evolve very gradually, but the tree model makes it look like they evolve over night,like there was a distinct moment in time when a mother language clearly broke off into daughter languages. But it seems to me it probably wasn’t quite like that.


TPO 19 Lecture 2 Astronomy(Radio Astronomy & Optical Astronomy)

Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in an astronomy class.

Professor
So how many of you have seen the Milky Way, the Milky Galaxy in the sky? You, you have?

Student
Yeah, I was camping, and there was no moon that night, it was super dark.

Professor
Anybody else? Not too many. Isn’t that strange that the Milky Way is the galaxy that the planet earth is in, and most of us have never seen it? Now, what’s the problem here?

Student
Light pollution, right? From street lights and stuff ...

Professor
Yes, Especially unshielded street light, you know, ones that aren’t pointed downward. Now, here’s an irony, the buiding we are in now, the astronomy building not far from our observatory, has unshielded lights.

Student
So the problem is pretty widespread.   

Professor
It  is basically beyond control, as far as expecting to view the night sky anywhere near city,  I mean.  I have lived around here my whole life. And  I have never seen the Milky Way within city limits, and  I probably never will. There is a price for progress, eh? But let’s think beyond light pullution, that’s only one kind of a technological advance that has interfered with astronomical research.   

Can anyone think of another? No?   Ok, let’s look at it this way, we don’t only gain information by looking at the stars, for the past 70 years or so, we have also used radio astronomy1 , which lets us study radio waves from the sky.

Student
How can you observe radio waves? I mean, tell anything about the stars from that.

Professor
Well,  in optical astronomy, using a telescope and observing the stars that way, we rely on visible light waves. What we are seeing from earth is actually electromagnetic radiation that’s coming from stars. And just one part of it is visible light. But there are problems with that.   When photons2   and light waves hit objects in our atmosphere, water droplets, oxygen and nitrogen molecules, dust particles and so on. These objects are illuminated, they are lit up, and those things are also being lit by all our street lights, by the moon, all these ambient light. And on top of that, when that visible radiation bounces off those molecules, it scatters in all directions. And well, light from stars, even nearby in our own galaxy, doesn’t stand a chance against that. Basically the light bouncing off all these objects close to earth is brighter than what’s coming from the stars.   

Now, radiowaves are electromagnetic radiation that we can’t see. Nearly all astronomical objects in space emit radio waves, whether nearby stars, objects in far away galaxies, they all give off radio waves. And unlike visible light waves, these radio waves can get through the various gases and dusts in space, and through our own earth’s atmosphere comparatively easily.

Student
Ok, then we might as well give up on optical astronomy and go with radio astronomy.

Professor
Well, the thing is, with the radio astronomy, you can’t just set up a telescope in you backyard and observe stars.
One problem is that radio waves from these far away objects, even though they can get through, are extremely
faint. So we need to use radio telescopes, specially designed to receive these waves and then, well, we can use
computers to create pictures based on the information we receive.   

Student
That sounds cool. So, how do they do that?

Professor
Well, it is kind of like the same way a  satellite dish3
  receives  its signal, if you are familiar with  that. But radio
telescopes are sometimes grouped together, is the same effect as having one big telescope to increase radio
wave gathering power. And they use electronics, quite sophisticated. Yeah, it is neat how they do it, but for now
why don’t we just stick with what we can learn from it. Some very important discoveries have been made by this
technology, especially you consider that some objects in space give off radio waves but don’t emit any light. We
have trouble discovering those sorts of bodies, much less studying them using just optical telescopes.

Student
Well, If the radio waves are so good at getting throught the universe, what’s the problem?

Professor
Well, answer this. How come people have to turn off their cell phones and all our electronic devices when an
airplane is about to take off?

Student
The phones interfere with the radio communication at the airport, right?

Student
Oh, so our radio waves here on earth interfere with the waves from space?

Professor
Yes, signal from radios, cell phones, TV stations, remote controls, you name it. All these things cause interference.
We don’t think about that as often as we think about light pollution. But all those electrical gauges pollute the
skies, just in a differen way.

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO 19 Conversation 2

Narrator
Listen to a conversation between a student and the director of the student cafeteria.

Student
Hi, I... I am sorry to interrupt, could I ask you a few questions?

Director
Sure, but if it is about you meal plan, you’ll need to go to Room 45, just down the hall.

Student
Eh, no, I am OK with my meal plan. I am actually here about the food in the student cafeteria.

Director
Oh, we do feed a lot of students, so we can’t always honor individual requests. I am sure you understand.

Student
Of course. It is just that I am a little concerned, I mean, a lot of us are, that a lot of the food you serve isn’t really that healthy. Like there are so many deep-fried foods.

Director
As a matter of fact, we recently changed  the type of oil we use in our fryer .  It is the healthiest available. And would you believe that at least ten students have already complaint that their french fries and fried chicken don’t taste as good since we switched?

Student
Oh,  I try not to eat too many fried foods anyway.  I am just aware that, eh...You see,  I used to work in a natural food store. They had all these literature4  advising people to eat fresh organic growing food. Working there really open my eyes.   

Director
Did you come to the organic food festival we had to celebrate Earth Day?   

Student
Oh, sorry, I must have missed that.   

Director
We served only certified organic food, most of which was from local farms. It is not something we can afford to do on a daily basis, and there aren’t too many organic farms around here. But sometime the produce we offer is organically grown. It depends on the season and the prices of course.   

Student
That’s good to know. I like the fact that organic farms don’t use chemical pesticides or anything that can pollute the soil or the water.   

Director
I do too. But  let me ask you this. Is it better to buy locally grown produce that is not certified as organic or is  it better to get organically grown fruits and vegetables that must be trucked in from California, three thousand mile away. What about fossile fuels  burned by the trucks’  engine.  Plus the  expense of shipping food  across  long distances. And nutritionally speaking, an apple is an apple however it is grown.   

Student
I see your point. It is not so clear-cut.   

Director
Why don’t you visit our cafeteria’s website? We list all our food suppliers. You know, where we buy the food that we serve. And the site also suggests ways to make your overall diet a healthy one. You can also find some charts listing fat and calorie content for different types of seafood, meat and the other major food groups.   

Student
I didn’t realize you thought about all these things so carefully, I just noticed the high-calorie food in the cafeteria.   

Director
Well, we have to give choices so everyone is satisfied. But if you wish to pursue this further,  I suggest that you talk to my boss.   

Student
That’s OK, seems like you are doing what you can.   

  

TPO 19 Lecture 3 Marine Biology(Plant Life in Salt Marshes)

Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a marine biology class.

Professor
Ok,  today we are going to continue our discussion of plant life  in coastal salt marshes
5  of North America. Salt marshes are among the least inviting environments for plants.  The water is salty, there is little shade and the ocean tide comes in and out, constantly flooding the marsh, so the variety of plants found in salt marshes is limited, but there is a plant genus that thrives there, the Spartina. In fact, the Spartina genus is the dominant plant found in salt marshes. You can find one type of  the Spartina, Saltmarsh Cordgrass,  growing in low marsh areas.  In higher marsh  areas, you are likely to find a  Spartina commonly called Salt-meadow Hay. So how is the Spartina able to survive in an envrionment that would kill most plants? well, it is because salt marsh grasses have found ways to adapt to the conditions there.   

First of all, they are able to withstand highly saline conditions. One really interesting adaptation is the ability to reverse the process of osmosis6

. Typically, the process of osmosis works... Well, when water moves through the wall  of a plant cell, it will move from the side  containing water with the lowest amount of salt into the side containing the highest amount of salt. so imagine what would happen if a typical plant suddenly found itself in salt water, the water contained in the plant cells, that is water with very little salt would be drawn out toward the seawater, water with a lot of salt. So you can see the fresh water contained in the plant will be removed and the plant will quickly lose all its water and dehydrate. But what about the Spartinas, well, they allow a certain amount of salt to enter their cells, bringing  the  salt content of the water within the plant, to a slightly higher concentration than that of the surrounding seawater. So instead of fresh water moving out of the plant cells, salt from the seawater enters, reverse osmosis, and this actually strengthens the cells.

Another adaptation to the salty environment is the ability to excrete excess salt back to the environment. That’s why you might see a Spartina shimmering in the sunlight. What’s reflecting the light is not salt from seawater that has evaporated, although that’s a good guess. But it is actually the salt that came from within the plant. Pretty cool, eh? You can really impress your friends and family with  that  little ? the next time you are in a salt marsh.   

But coping with salt is not the only challenge for plants in the salt marsh. Soil there is dense and very low in oxygen, so Spartinas have air tubes, air enters through tiny openings on the leaves, the tubes provide direct pipe line for oxygen, carrying it down the leaves through the stems and into the roots, where it is needed. If you pull up a Spartina, you might even notice some reddish mud on some of the roots, this is caused by oxygen reacting with iron sulfide in the soil, and it produces iron oxide or rust.   


Now, although the Spartinas have adapted several chemical and physical mechanisms that allow them to thrive in salt water and to feed oxygen to their roots. There is yet another aspect of the harsh environment that they have to adapt to, the force of tides and occasional violent storms. Wind and water are constantly crashing into these plants. So as you might have guessed, they have developed a means of solidly anchoring themselves into the soil.  How?  They have  tough  sort of underground stems called  rhizome,  rhizomes from  one plant grow through the muddy soil and interlock with those of other nearby plants, the plants form a kind of colony, a community that will thrive and perish together. Because alone as single plants, they cannot survive. \

Of course the plants in these colonies also need tough  resilient stems above the soil, stems that can bent a lot but not break as water constantly crashes into them.   So in addtion to the interlocking underground rhizomes, they have yet another adaptation, and it is ... well, we are back to reverse osmosis again, by adjusting the osmotic pressure so that the cells are always fully inflated, the plant is able to withstand great pressure befor snapping, so Spartinas may  look like simple marsh grass, but they are really a wonder of chemistry, physics and structural engineering that allows them to survive and even thrive in an evironment in which most plants will wilt7   and die within hours.



Recommended Reading:
Salt Marsh Life
Life in New Hampshire Salt Marshes
Dynamics of the Salt Marsh

TPO 19 Lecture 4 Art History(Cecilia Beaux)

Narrator: Listen to part of a discussion in an art history class.

Professor: All right, let’s continue our discussion of portrait artists(portraitist) and portraiture. Who remembers any of the important points we made last time? Sandra?   

Student: Well, artists have done portraits of people for centuries, of famous people and regular people, and most portraits convey the artists’ personal vision, like their feelings and insights about a person.   

Professor: Great, that’s a crucial point,  and  I’d like to explore that a little today. A  great example of that, that vision in portraiture, is Cecilia Beaux. Cecilia Beaux was born in 1854, and after learning to paint and studying with several important artists of the time, Beaux became known as one of the best portrait painters in the United States. She was very successful.  She even  had  portraits of the wife and children of  Theodore Roosevelt,  while he was president. Some did not get much more prestige than that.   Now, those portraits also reflect the kind of subjects that Beaux tended to use, which were mostly women and children.  For example, in her first major work, her subjects were ..., the painting featured her sister and her nephew. Yes, Mark?

Student
Yeah, it just seems interesting.  I was wondering if that was unusual to have  a portrait artist who  is  a woman become so well-known and successful in the 19th century.   

Professor
Great question. Yeah, she really stood out back in the 1800s. And today, she is still considered one of the greatest portrait painters of her time, male or female. In fact, she was the first full-time female instructor  at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and she was a full member of the National Academy of Design. These are pretty important institutions, so, yeah, she definitely made headway for women artists.   Ok, so let’s look at one of her portraits now, this painting is called The Dreamer.  It  is one of my favorites. And I think it is especially characteristic of Beaux’s work. So what you see here is a portrait of a close friend of Cecilia Beaux.   So tell me what’s the first thing that draws you to this painting? What catches your eye first.   

Student
Well, for me, it is her face and hands,  I  think they are really expressive, and also, they make the woman seem very comtemplative, seems like she is thinking pretty seriously about something.

Student
Yeah, her eyes kind of draw you in. But what strikes me is the contrasting colors, the white dress and  the dark background. It kind of reminds me of that painting we discussed a few weeks ago, by ...eh... John Singer Sargent. I think it was called MadameX?

Professor
I agree, good point. Yes, Beaux had high regard for Sargent’s work. And this is something, a technique you will find in both of their work.   Ok, but the painting is called The Dreamer. What do you see is dreamlike about it?   

Student
Well, the background behind the woman is pretty vague.  Like, maybe there is no real context,  like no definite surroundings, expecially compared to the woman herself, since she is so clear and well-defined.

Professor
Yes, the unclear background definitely contributes to that dreaminess.  It is meant to show a sense of isolation  I think. With the woman is deep in a daydream and not really aware of anything eale. This painting shows how insightful Cecilia Beaux was as a portrait artist. Besides her excellent technical skills, like her use of brush strokes and color to make an impression, both respectives come through. Her portraits reveal her own interpretation of her subject’s state of mind. This is what it is all about, not just likenesses
8
.   
Now, the undefined background also shows how Cecilia Beaux was influenced by the French Impressionists, who believed, like Beaux, in a personal rather than conventional approach to their subject matter. Beaux used some impressionist techniques and share much of their phylosophy, but her style, it was all her own.

香草鱼UID: 3125484

TPO20
Conversation1

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 arestill asking you to bring the book back?
Student
Uh-huh. DoI really have to?
main purpose很分散

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 acertain section or chapter you are working with?

Student
Well, there’s one chapter in particularI amworking with, but why?

Librarian
Well, we normally don’t do this, but because of the circumstances we canphotocopy up to one chapter for you. Why don’t you do that for the one you areworking with right now? And by the time you need therest 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 arebooks Iwant 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 dollarper day fine. But you need toreturn it today ifyou want to check out any books today. That’s our policy.

Savatudent
Librarian
Yeah, not a lot of people realize that. In fact, every semester we get afew students who would have their borrowing privileges suspended completely because they haven’t returned books. They areallowed 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 Ishould 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.


TPO20  Lecture1  Linguistics(Gricean Maxims)

Narrator
Listen to part of alecturein 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 amlying 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 GriceanMaxims is... well, I’ve already given you a hint.

Student
Oh, you just can’t go around telling lies.

Professor
Right, or as Griceput 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
would ask me what time it was and I replied ‘my sister just got married’, what would you think?

Student
You are not reallyanswering 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
inferthingsas well, or rather the speaker can imply things and the listener can make inferences. For
instance, suppose you sayyou would really love to havea 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
be relevant. It’dhave no connection with what you saidbefore. But according to the maxim, my response
should berelevant 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 thedetails, 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 beclear, and avoid ambiguity.
And another more interesting maxims is one of the so-called maxims of quantity, quantities of information,
thatis. It says, togiveas much as is required in the situation.So suppose you asked me what I did
yesterday andIsay ‘I went to the Art Museum.’ You 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 aconversation.
But there aretimes when people will violatethese maxims on purpose. Let’s say aboss 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 awritten letter not aconversation, but the principleis the same. The boss is conveying a
negative impression of Mr. X without actually saying negative about him. So, by violating the maxims,
we ...eh... but ... it can be away 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 anadvantage 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 anadvertisement saying some product could be up 语气to 20% more effective, think of these maxims of quantity and relevance, and askyourself what inferences you are being led to draw. Think, moreeffective than whatexactly? And why do they use those little phrases ‘could be’ and ‘up to’?These claims give us alot less information than they seem to.





Lecture 2  Environmental Science (Interglacial Periods)

Narrator
Listen to part of alecturein anenvironmental science class.

Professor
I’d like to takeyou back about 11 thousand years ago when Earthentered 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
experienced periodic regular thaws, and the last one, the one we are in now, started about 11thousand
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, thereis the most carbon dioxide
and methane gas, uh, greenhouse gases in the atmospherejust after the beginning of theinterglacial
period. Andthen, for reasons which are not entirely clear, the concentration of greenhouse gases
gradually goes down. Now, the climate continues to warm for awhile because thereis alag 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 dipped a little bit after, uh, uh, after peaking 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. Methaneformsinlarge 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 aretalking 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, theclimate would start to cool and we’dslowly enter into the new Ice Age. Andthenthey were puzzledas to why it didn’tseem to be happening. Umm... now, what arethe implications for the future? Well, um... it is alittle tricky. I mean, you could say, well,here is an example of ...um ...humanactivity,the agricultural revolution which actually was beneficial,wealteredtheclimate forthebetter, perhaps, by preventinganIceAge. 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 in to uncharted territorynow,interms oftheamount of carbon dioxide,the concentrations of carbon dioxide that are now being put into theatmosphere asa result of industrialization and the use of fossil fuels.

香草鱼UID: 3125484

Conversation 2

Narrator
Listen to aconversation between astudent and aprofessor.

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 areyou doing?

Student
All right.

Professor
Well, good. The reason Iwanted totalk to you was that while you were presenting you linguistics project
inclass theotherday,well,youknow,Iwasthinkingyouareaperfect candidateforthedean’s
undergraduateresearch fund.

Student
Um ... Professor, Iam reallysure what the... um ... dean ....

Professor
Undergraduate research fund is ... It is amouthful I suppose. OK. Here’s the thing. Every yeartheschool
has apool of money to fund a number of research projects of undergraduatestudents. Because asyou
can imagine, in depth research often requires monetarysupport.

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 beused 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 Ithink you should apply for this grant. Your project is definitely eligible. And you can expand it if
you havethe necessary resources. So, does it sound like something you would be interested in?

Student
Oh, yeah, sounds great. I thought thetopic Iwork on was very interesting, and it is certainly relevant to my
linguistics major. I assume it will alsolook good when Itry to get into graduate school. But how do Iapply
for the grant?

Professor
It is pretty straightforward. Abrief description of your proposed project, and an estimated budget. How
much you need to spend and what you intend tospend it on. Also aglowing letter of recommendation
from a linguistics professor wouldn’t hurt, which I’d be morethan happy to write up for you.

Student
OK. Cool. I amprettyclearonhowtocarryoutmyproject,butIamnotsurewhereIcanfindmore
information on the subject.

Professor
Well, I have already thought of that. There’s this privatelibrary ata university in Boston. By the way,
because Igraduated from that school, I canget you access to it, no problem. You see, the libraryhouses
lots of unpublished documents that arerelevant to your topic.

Student
So Ican put that on the application for the grant, that I plan on using material from that library for my
research and figurea trip to Boston into my budget?

Professor
4qualified. Exactly. Ireallythinkjudgingfromyourworkinclass,andtherelevanceandclarityofthis
project, you really havea good chanceof getting the funding.
Student
OK. I’ll definitely apply then.

Professor
The sooner the better. It is due in afew weeks. Gook Luck! And I’ll get that letter written up right away.




Lecture 3  Literature(Folktales)

Narrator
Listen to part of alecturein a literatureclass.

Professor
All right, sonow 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 areoften about real people, so you canidentify with the
characters, and that’s what engages us in them. The particularstories might not be trueand some of the
characters or events might bemade up. But there’s still asense that the story could have been true since




it is about areal person. That’s distinct contrast from theother 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’tever reallyget the sense that the story might have been true. They are purely imaginative and so quiterevealing, Ithink 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 taleand focus specifically on Norwegianfolk tales since they illustratethe variety pretty well. There arein general three main types of Norwegian folk tales. One is animal stories, where animals are the main characters. They can bewild animals or domestic, and alotoftimes

theycantalkandbehavelikehumans,butatthesametime,theyretaintheiranimal characteristics too. They tend to involve animals like bears,wolves and foxes. The point of these stories, their, their internal objectives, so thespeak, is usually to explain some feature of theanimal, how it arose. So there’s one about afox who fools abear into going ice fishing with his tail. When the bearputs his tail into the water through ahole in the ice, to tryand catch afish, 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 taleis the supernatural. Eh ...stories about giants and dragons andtrolls,andhumans withsupernaturalpowers orgifts, like invisibility cloaks. Orwherepeopleare turned into animals and back againinto a person, those arecalled transformation stories. There’s awell-known Norwegiansupernatural folk tale, atransformation story called East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which we’ll read. It involves aprince who is awhite bearbynight and a human by day. And he lives in the castlethat’seast 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 atransformation 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, ‘onceuponatime ...’. Andithas stock5characterslikeaprince,andapoorbutbeautiful peasant girl, she is the heroine Imentioned. And ... um ... it has a very conventional form. So no more than two characters are involved in any one scene. And it has ahappy ending. And it’s ... the story is presented asthough ... well, even though alot of the actions that occurred are pretty fantastic, soyou’d never think of it asrealistic. The characters still act like ... they resemble real people. They arenot real or even based on historical figures. But you might have a supernaturalstory involving aking, and he’dact like you’d expect aNorwegian king to act. OK. The third main kind of folk taleis thecomical story. We’ll saymore laterabout these, but for now, just be awareof the category and that they can containsupernatural aspects, but they areusually more playful and amusing overall than supernaturalstories. Now, as Isaid, traditionally, folk tales were just passed down orally. Each generation of storytellers had kids. They weren’t seen asworthy 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 assort of a reflection of the soul of the people. So therewas something distinctly Norwegian infolk tales from Norway.


And therewas renewed pride in the literature and art forms of individual countries. As aresult, thefirst collection of Norwegianfolk tales is published in 1852. And therehave been many new editions published sincethen.Forthe peopleofNorway,thesestoriesarenowanimportantpartofwhatitmeanstobe Norwegian.



Lecture 4  Biology(Snowshoe Hare)

Narrator
Listen to part of alecturein a biology class.

Professor
Now, James, you saidyou had been to theState of Maine, right?

Student
Yeah, actually Ilived in western Maineuntil Iwas about sixteen.

Professor
Great. So why don’t you tell everybody what is like therein thewinter?
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 Iwould. Idid field research up there acouple of winters. And it really is anincredible environment.
And to survivein that sort of environment, animals have to adapt, to evolvein response to their
surroundings. As you recall, anadaptation is any feature, um... physical or behavioral featureof aspecies
that helps it survive and reproduce. And in adapting to extreme climates, like Mainein the winter time,
animals can evolvein pretty interesting ways. Take, for example, the snowshoe hare.
Ok, the snowshoe hare, and of course, that’s H-A-R-E, like arabbit. Although I probably should mention
that technically ahareis not exactly the same asa rabbit,even though it is verysimilar. The primary
difference is that a rabbit’s young are born blind and without fur, while a hare’s babies are born with afull
coat and ableto see.
Now, the snowshoe hare, tell me, what sort of adaptations do you think it has developed that help it
survive theMaine winters?I’ll give you ahint. Food isn’t an issue. The hareactually 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 thewinter, 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 seeit
against the white snow.

Student
Yeah, but I could swearI remembered seeing rabbits in the snow a couple of times, I means hares, that
werebrown.

Professor
Well, you may very well have. Timing is really important, but the snowshoehare doesn’t always get it
exactly right. Its chances for survival arebest ifit 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, asthe
Sun is up for ashorter and shorter time each day, the snowshoe harestartsgrowing white fur and
shedding its brown fur. The haredoes a pretty good job with its timing, but sometimes when there’s a
reallyearly orlatesnow,it standsout. Plus,it takes about amonthforthesnowshoehare’s coatto
completely change color. So ifthere’s a particularlyearly snowfall, it’s very likely that the hare’s fur would
not yet be totally white. And that would makethis aparticularlydangerous 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 anadaptation 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 arenot likethick furryshoes designed to keep the feet warm, they are
actually quite thin, but very wide. What they do is spread out the weight of thefoot 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 anadaptation that plays on the same idea. It has hind feet that act like

snowshoes. Imean, it’s paws arewide and they allow the hareto hop and run just atthe surface of deep
snow. And this is ahuge advantage for the snowshoe haresince bycontrast, the feet of its predators
usually sink right down into the snow.
Now, another advantage relatedto this is that unlike many animals in winter, snowshoe hares can stay
lean6 and light weight. They accumulateessentially no body fat. Cananyone guess why this is so?

Student
They don’t eat very much?

Professor
Well, yes. But not because thereisn’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 harshwinters.